Independence Day cook-in

Independence Day Food

I usually try to have a cook-out of some sort for Independence Day. This year I actually managed to have people over and serve them food. The original plan was to cook out on my balcony, enjoy the lovely day, grill some food, have fun. But, things rarely go according to plan. When I was cleaning my little electric grill (we’re not allowed to have real grills on balconies where I live), the non-stick coating came off in huge chunks. Not wanting to take any risks, I decided to chuck it. Which was fine because it gave me a chance to really clean up my balcony (I was planting plants earlier and haven’t cleaned up all the stuff yet) and it looks pretty good now. The day was promising to be great, but it was really hot and muggy.
I also wasn’t worried about the grill at all because I figured I’d drive up to Costco and get a new one. Which did, only to find that Costco was closed. Drat!!! What am I gonna feed people who are coming in 2 hours?! Panic was starting to set in. But I had most everything prepared ahead of time, so really, I had very little left to do; just the cooking actually. So, I had to improvise a few things, one of which was to run to the grocery store and pick up some olives, hot dogs, hot dog buns, mustard, etc.

But since most of my plan still worked, here are a couple things I did to make entertaining really easy.

1. I knew I’d be making chicken so I cleaned it and started marinating it a few days earlier; on Friday, actually.  I used a variety of spices and rubs from Penzey’s.
2. I started to defrost the shrimp on Friday too, knowing that I won’t need it for a few days.
3. Don’t do anything complicated. My veggie platter just needed a sharp knife, store-bought hummus, and (home-made) grilled bread.
4. Have a good grill pan! I used it for the shrimp, the bread, hot dogs, and chicken.

So, here’s what we had:
Marinated mushrooms
Olives (these were marinated black olives and Gorgonzola-stuffed green olives) from the store
Couscous, carrot, and chickpea salad
Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
Veggies (broccoli, red bell pepper, radishes, and cucumbers)
Bread (grilled)
Shrimp (see below)
Chicken (see below)

Grill Pan and meat

Grilled Chicken

The pan was large enough for our purposes. I had three chicken breasts, and I could have had more. But I decided to put some hot dogs on as well. See, even on a grill pan, we got some pretty grill marks. And the chicken turned out to be moist, according to one of my guests. All I did for the chicken is clean it, sprinkle liberally with spices, and let them sit in a zipped baggie for more than a day.

I actually came up with a new shrimp marinade. Here it is:
Shrimp Marinade
Ingredients:
2 TB of olive oil
1 tsp garlic salt, 1 tsp granulated garlic (garlic powder), a dash of salt, a dash of black pepper, a touch of spanish smoked paprika.

Steps:
1. Mix it all together.
2. Place shrimp (I used about a pound of 20-25 count shrimp) into a Ziploc baggie and pour the marinade over the shrimp. Coat all the shrimp with the marinade and let sit for about a half hour or more.
3. Grill as you would normally.