One Prep, Two Meals: From the Grill

Recipes perfect for blazing summer days require minimal stovetop time and maximize your playtime. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
Earlier this week, as I prepped for a boat-based spin on my Fine Dining: Front Country workshop, I was reminded how much I love grilled meals. Especially when I can create two dinners from one prep session. And especially in the middle of a heatwave.

This month, I’ll be sharing recipes perfect for blazing summer days. They require minimal stovetop time and instead have you firing up the grill. They also let you maximize your summer playtime by prepping the next night’s meal, using the same base ingredients but putting a new spin on their flavors. Instead of eating tiresome leftovers, you’ll enjoy a fresh dish with minimal added effort.
Read more about one prep for two meals from the grill

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Choosing Grilling Vegetables

This list of vegetable grilling choices will remind you of favorite options and inspire you to try new ones. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
At the peak of harvest, the biggest challenge when firing up the grill is choosing what to put on it. Do I want to roast that basket of peppers or let them sit longer to develop more color? Should I work through those giant bowls of tomatoes and tomatillos? Did I harvest eggplant, or broccoli, or corn? Is there extra room for vegetables that will keep longer, like onions, beets, and garlic, but would be tasty tonight?

When the pace of harvest slows, the question often becomes, What can’t I put on the grill? The answer is surprisingly little. From fruit to breadsticks and pizza to fish, it all tastes delicious when cooked over coals. Vegetables by far make up my largest grilling category. Hopefully this list will remind you of favorite options and inspire you to try new ones.
Read more about choosing grilling veg

Fired Up

Cooking over fire is simple and adaptable for not just meats but also vegetables and fruit. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
This time of year, I’m always fired up about preparing food on the grill. Just this last week, I was grilling sourdough pizza aboard the Blue Mule and smoking cherries to infuse in bourbon and to pickle. Although I throw plenty of more traditional foods on the grill, like shrimp and fish, I increasingly fill my beat-up Weber kettle grill with vegetables and fruit.

The Twice as Tasty collection of grilling and smoking recipes has grown large enough that I recently broke it into its own category on the Recipes page. But many preparations are so simple and adaptable that once you get the hang of how your grill or smoker handles produce, you’ll realize you don’t need a recipe and can use the tool to prepare multiple meals and even frozen or canned treats.
Read more about grilling and smoking your harvest

One Prep, Two Meals: Couscous

Quick meals don’t get any easier than boiling water, pouring it over couscous, and adding fresh veg and canned beans. Get couscous recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
Hopefully you’ve been inspired by all of this month’s recipes to look beyond leftovers and use the one prep–two meals formula. If couscous isn’t a staple in your pantry, this week’s post may surprise you as much as risotto did last week. But once you try these recipes, you’ll stock up on couscous for plenty of quick, easy meals. Just as fresh pasta outshines dried in any meal, instant couscous can’t compete with semolina grains steamed in stages in a couscoussière. But for quick meals at home, in the woods, or on the water, it doesn’t get any easier than boiling water and pouring it over the couscous. Add some fresh veg and canned beans, and you have lunch and dinner ready in a snap.

Speed and ease are just two of the beauties of the recipes you’ll find here. As I shared with more than a dozen sailors in a workshop this week, the two recipes here can spawn many days of meals cooked in a galley or over a camp stove and grill: I always travel with several heads of preroasted garlic to serve on grilled pizza, sandwiches, and other meals. The extra half-batch of chermoula can be used as a shrimp marinade. Bonus cans of chickpeas can be mashed into hummus. Extra veg can be grilled or sliced for dinner sides or between-meal snacks. And homemade feta disappears so quickly into hungry mouths you could never travel with too much.
Learn to make Vegetable Couscous with Chickpeas and Feta and Couscous Salad with Raw Vegetables