The Nemesis

Barbecued Chicken Quesadillas with Grilled Tomato Salsa and Buttermilk Dressing! This is from Boy Meets Grill (page 52). The recipe specifically calls for leftover chicken so we used what we had left from the roasted chicken meal a couple of days ago - the chicken was even better the second time around! The  from-scratch, grilled tomato salsa made all the difference. The salsa ingredients were tomatoes, jalapeno, garlic, balsamic vinegar and fresh cut cilantro - all brought together in a pan right on the grill. I think it was the cilantro that gave it the kick. The dressing cooled the whole thing down with sour cream, buttermilk, and lime. After everything was ready, I built the quesadillas right on the grill with layers of Monterrey Jack, the chicken, the salsa, and Cheddar. We roasted three colors of peppers, drizzled on the dressing and there you have it - it took about 30 minutes.


Wisdom of the Grill - Put the tortillas right on the grill grates, but first put a butter spray on them so that they won't burn or become too crispy. All you need is a spatula to turn them over. Building the quesadillas right on the grill allows the cheeses to melt during the process and the flavors come together. It can be messy - but that's all part of it.


What stuff do you need? So far everything thing I have needed to grill all these meals I already had. I was worried that I might need to run out and buy some unique utensil - but it seems that the basic stuff is plenty. Here is what I think are the basics: You need tongs, a spatula, grill thermometer, cast iron skillet, a bunch of pans, a grill brush/scrapper, two grill mitts and a brick. The pans are just flimsy metal baking pans that cost about $2 and can be thrown away when you don't want to clean them. I have both round and oblong. I used an oblong, rectangular one for the grilled salsa today. Your grill brush must be heavy duty so it won't bend when you lean into it while scraping the grates. The brush must be made of wire and also have a blade and an edge tool. The brush gets worn down over time, so I get a new brush with each change of season. The two grill mitts are not indoor, kitchen oven mitts. These things are heavy duty, they have no fancy designs and are scared from battle. One goes all they way to the elbow. And the brick? Actually its a collection of bricks left over from building the house. The bricks that you use don't necessarily have to match your house, but I think it makes a statement. I set hot pans and skillets on the bricks, I use a brick to hold the grill brush, I stack the bricks to hold the rotisserie motor, and I cook with a brick. You wrap a brick in aluminum foil and use it as a weight on chicken and panini sandwiches. A brick is a grill basic.


When you accumulate all this basic grill stuff you gotta have a cool place to put it all that is easily accessible to the grill. I have the perfect thing - in our family it has been affectionately called "The Nemeses." It started its life as an Ethan Allen armoire. Dorothy brought it to the marriage. Over time it has acted as a clothes closet and a china cabinet. Ziggy named it The Nemesis because it must weigh at least 300 pounds and he and I have had multiple occasions where we had to move it into and out of UHaul trucks. It has been a fixture (albatross) in the seven houses that we have lived over 28 years. It has even been on the second floor! Moving is a terrible chore to begin with, but when we had to do it, we dreaded the time when we had to move The Nemesis. Its just too big, its just heavy and you just can't get a grip on it. When we moved to our current house, much of our old furniture, including The Nemesis, just didn't fit the new decor, so Dorothy called the consignment store to come pick up and resell the old stuff. When the guys came in the truck to haul off The Nemesis, I just couldn't do it (the guys took one look at it and wanted to back out of the deal anyway!). So we kept The Nemesis in the family, moved it to the back screened-in porch and it began a new life as my grill cabinet and entertainment center (you can never use the words grill and armoire in the same sentence).  

The Nemesis

            



                                







What was on? With quesadillas we had to have Mana' - The music is great, but they don't sing in English  so most of the time I don't know what they are signing about. Ireland has U2, American has Springsteen, and Mexico has Mana' - check them out at
http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/mana/artist.jhtml

What to drink? We kept the theme going with Coronas and lime slices. The one I had while grilling outside became slushy then solid in the cold!


The spicy flavors of the quesadillas and the hot music from Mana' made the 25 degree temperature feel like, well 35. We will keep the grill fires burning!


Paul