I don't own a grill or believe in grill pans

But how much fun it is to pretend?

SUMMER IS OFFICIALLY HERE! Or at least that’s how it feels. There’s something about the week after Memorial Day that feels extremely positive and summery. Yes, it might be the worst 4-day week of all time (hearing from my business friends, it seemed like this Tuesday was just Monday-scaries on steroids, and for that I’d like corporate America to apologize) but there’s still so much of summer to look forward to. I’m a summer girl, so needless to say, I’m excited.

And this summer, the girls are out and they are GRILLING. Myself included. Well, kind of. I don’t own a grill, but I do own an induction burner and a strong sense of self worth.

The recipes I uploaded this week are two cast iron recipes that make me feel like I’m as close to a grill as my building code could possibly let me get. And both go together like summer and SPF. (PS, make sure you are wearing SPF!)

The first is a Spiced Tomato Butter Salmon on a cast iron pan. It takes less than 15 minutes, and yes, you can totally cook acidic ingredients in your cast iron. I have more information on how to make sure your pan survives in my blog post.

The second is Cast Iron Vegetables with Buttermilk Dressing - and I used a grill pan, and yes, I love the fun (faux) char marks that grill pans can make. But do you need to buy one? Probably not. The whole goal of hitting your vegetables with a super high heat is to get those dark, charred, caramelized bits and pieces, which require surface area. A grill pan takes away some of the surface area, which really defeats the whole purpose of a cast iron. BUT if you own one, I’m never going to say to ditch it. I was gifted one last year, and it’s a ton of fun to use to get my fake-grill-game on.

My POV on kitchen tools is not to shame consumers for buying them, it’s just to know what you are buying. A grill pan is just a cast iron in a different shape, an air fryer is just a convection oven with a basket. An instant pot is just…..well, it’s still a mystery to me. But you get it.

*PS, the audio portion of this episode got delayed because I had to use a bit of my recording time to do this. I did enjoy the drama though.

**PPS, a few of my recipes on the blog are being taken down/off for retesting, reshooting and refurbishment. If you love anything and see it has gone missing, let me know, I’ll put it back up and I will make sure to make a note of it in my refurb records!

Until next week!

Xoxo,

Justine_Grills