Barbequing

I love barbeques! Barbeques and al fresco dining have always been a key part of summer for as long as I can remember. They were usually large affairs with family and friends turning up with lots of food to share. Most of the time they were unplanned and most of time they went on all day until we had squeezed the last rays from the sun (and in Scotland this is about 10pm in summer) then we’d eventually drift indoors and carry on partying.
I was too young to drink and therefore probably the only person to remember a particular barbecue where my parents had just returned from holidaying in Spain and brought with them the recipe for making Sangria!!

The actual barbequing area was the domain of the male head of household so that was my Dad at my house and my sister husbands if it was their houses. It was ok for one or two other males to be present in the barbequing area but only in a supporting role and the males and females were happy to drink and chat or provide a beer delivery service to the barbequing area.

So my own and my husbands knowledge and skill of operating and cooking on a barbeque is very limited to what we have observed.

We purchased a barbeque along with other things from the previous tenants of our rental home and the beautiful weather of the long labour weekend meant we would finally get a chance to try our hands at barbequing. I opened the barbeque prepared with heavy duty cleaning materials and rubber gloves only to discover that it had rusted through and one of the gas pipes had a large rust cavity and fissure (I was going to write hole and crack but that just sounds rude doesn’t it?). Not to be dissuaded from my plans that easily, I talked Kane into shopping for another barbeque and then phoned up Stuff2Go, a company that picks up junk and recycles it.

We weren’t sure how we would get a barbeque home in our small car and were contemplating wheeling it home in shopping trolleys, but happily it fitted (very) snuggly in the car.

Once we got home Kane set to building the barbeque with the cats playing on the deck in the sunshine beside him. Then we raided our cupboards to find things to barbeque!

The first night we barbequed:
• Vegan sausages
• Vegan burger
• Burger buns (mmm toasty buns!)
• Capsicum
• Red onion
• Pineapple
• Mushrooms
• Courgette
And served with salad and Tuimato sauce.

The next night we barbequed:
• Vegan Schnitzel
• Corn on the cob (parboiled)
• Capsicum
• Red onion
• Pineapple
• Mushroom
• Garlic cloves
• Carrots (parboiled)
• Tomatoes
And served with salad.

So far my favourite barbequed thing is garlic. I barbequed some peeled and some unpeeled and I didn’t notice any difference, both kinds were oh-so-tasty! I haven’t yet found anything that doesn’t taste good barbequed.