Sunday Dinner: Fathers' Day

We decided to try out some recipes from Cook's Illustrated for Dad tonight: Grilled Shrimp and Tomato Salad.

I love using recipes from Cook's Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen because they always have some sort of funky new method that's fun to try.

To make the grilled shrimp, you have to pile up all the coals on one side of the grill so you have a hot side and a not-so-hot side. Put a pound and a half of shrimp on skewers, tops to tails, then brush them with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper, then sprinkle only one side with sugar for caramelization. Then you throw a half stick of butter, two lemons worth of lemon juice, three minced cloves of garlic, and some salt and crushed red pepper into a disposable pan and put it on the grill until and melts together. Move it to the not-so-hot side of the grill, then put the shrimp on the hot side.


You know how they say you should soak bamboo skewers in water before they go on the grill? Um, yeah... don't blow off this step.

When they're done, throw them in their hot buttery bath, and use the hot side to cook your corn or other sides.



Dad examines his corn. That hot side was a little bit hotter than we expected.

To make the tomato salad, you quarter two pints of tomatoes, then sprinkle some sugar and salt on them and let them sit for a half hour. The tomatoes then go into the salad spinner, which makes the juice and seeds go flying out. Drain the seeds out of the juice, then put it in a pan with a tablespoon of balsamic and a minced shallot. Reduce to three tablespoons, cool, then whisk in two tablespoons of olive oil. Mix tomatoes, dressing, 8 ounces of cubed buffalo mozzarella, and a bunch of chopped basil.



Put some chopped flat leaf parsley in the shrimp sauce before serving and eat it with crusty bread

For dessert we had kolaches. I made the dough last weekend and froze it. When we were ready for dessert I just filled them and threw them in the oven for ten minutes. If you make the recipe linked above, keep in mind that it makes a lot of kolaches-- like 4-5 pans. I shared mine with friends, so it worked out well.


I made cherry and apricot. The apricot tasted better, but the cherry was easier-- I just opened a can.

So there's a dinner for a guy who, when meeting a foreigner, attempts to speak their language of origin to them, who knows nothing about pop culture but loves to talk about it anyway, and who takes all my ribbing with love and good humor: my dad.