Serious About Fun: Barbecuing in Boston

Grilled Chocolate Chip Cookies

This tastes as ridiculous as it sounds.  I recently found myself gathered around a grill with some friends and a package of chocolate chip cookies.  We did what came naturally, throwing a couple of cookies onto the grill, and wound up turning dry, adequate prepackaged cookies into homemade-tasting delights.  The difference is flooring, and this practice has since become one of my grilling staples.

Miller High Life

The cheap beer of kings, high life is also an ideal barbecuing beer because of its low alcohol content.  Starting early with high life (usually) means not falling asleep before dark.  Barbecuing and drinking during the day is the only situation I can think of in which relatively low alcohol content is an asset instead of a liability, but here we are.

Asparagus Pasta Salad

Yeah, yeah, Rachel Ray isn’t cool, blah blah blah.  I found her recipe for asparagus pasta salad,  tried it with the lowest of expectations, loved it and never looked back.  If you still feel guilty, just close your eyes and pretend it’s an Alton Brown recipe or something.

Gin and Tonics

Arguably the essential summer drink combination, gin and tonic water were first mixed when tonic water was deemed too bitter by soldiers being fed the stuff to prevent malaria.  These days, tonic water has about five percent of the quinine necessary to prevent malaria, but malaria risk is low these days and tonic water is now usually sweetened.  A worthwhile trade.
This MSNBC article  details some ways such a simple drink can go wrong and also supplies an excellent baseline recipe.

Corn

In these descriptions I often feel the need to justify why I chose to include a given item in my guide.  Corn is corn.  A barbecue without some corn just doesn’t make any sense.  Everyone likes corn.  Bobby Flay has an exceptional recipe for corn. can also just throw some butter and salt on there and enjoy, but you knew that.  It’s corn.

Modified Veggie Burgers

I feel weird for repeatedly mentioning my vegetarian lifestyle, but in a barbecue setting it’s unavoidable.  I’ve definitely done my share of running to the grocery store, picking up some morningstar or boca burgers, and throwing them on the grill, but when I saw this recipe 101cookbooks, it just about blew my mind.  
The most common gripe about grilled veggie burgers (and one I completely understand) is that they are too dry.  The genius behind this recipe realized that, engineered a slightly dryer burger, and used it as bread to hold vegetables and whatever else.  This is pretty much one of my favorite things in the world.

A Few Additional BBQ Guides

Tiki Torches and Tiny Drink Umbrellas

No amount of intoxication or burger ingestion will replicate the feelings of leisure and well-being brought on by items like these.  I have tried.

Mint Juleps

The perennial Southern classic, few things are better for a lazy summer day than a cold, minty alcoholic drink that pretty much forces you to drink it slowly. I began using this recipe  because it was close to the top of my google results, but it’s yet to do me wrong. 

Modified S'mores

It seems pretty rational that s’mores would taste excellent when cooked on a grill, but when the idea struck me, I discovered the bodega around the corner from my house didn’t stock graham crackers.  They did, however, stock Palmeritas, the ubiquitous circular Goya cookie.  We threw caution to the wind and picked some of these suckers up, and I’ll be darned if they’re not better than graham crackers.  These things can be found just about everywhere, so give them a shot.

Green Chile Cheeseburgers

I haven’t eaten meat in awhile, but I wholeheartedly recognize and embrace the fact that barbecue and meat are more or less synonymous.  With that in mind, I dug up this recipe  used by celebrity chef Bobby Flay.  It’s a bit time-intensive, with the preparing the chile sauce in advance, but I have a feeling that if you used the green tabasco sauce available at any supermarket it wouldn’t make too much of a difference.

Smoothies

When I first began conceiving this guide, it took me a little while to realize that I wasn’t providing any nonalcoholic refreshments for the children and non-drinkers among us.  Smoothies immediately came to mind.  With a pantload of fruit, some ice and a blender, it’s incredibly easy to make something almost absurdly delicious and good for you.  
N.B.: Throwing a neutral spirit like white rum or vodka in there is a fine idea.