HotM 6: the very late round-up

Next time I'm away for a chunk of August, I'll get someone else to do the round-up - how can I have thought it would work? No, that wasn't it ... I just didn't think at all. And next time it's grilling, perhaps the round-up should be done by someone who can rely on a little summer sunshine, even in these times of weird weather. We haven't used our grill once this summer, and I'm not sure that we will now - my family is all in winter mode (I'm not), pulling on jerseys and muttering about open doors and windows. That's enough breast-beating ... there are some great recipes to try - and I have already promised to cook all of them as a kind of penance. Wrong word, of course, it will be my pleasure.










Katie at Thyme for Cooking has made wonderful Spanish roasted potatoes with allioli, a garlic sauce not unlike French aioli, only without eggs, which makes it perfect for HoTM. Katie also has a grilled chicken salad (and a photo of some very black sausages her husband cooked ...)












Gilli at So So Simple Food has a good trick to keep her Ultimate Chicken BBQ moist - soak it in brine for a couple of hours.










Chris was in the hairdresser flipping through the magazines when she got the inspiration for her wild mushroom linguine with grilled gazpacho sauce. You'll find details for cooking indoors or outdoors at Mele Cotte. She's also sent a recipe for grilled salmon with three vegetables.









Cookie Baker Lyn loves asking couples how they met. So you won't be surprised to hear that she calls her grilled seafood Happily Ever After Shrimp.










Sophie says that her Earthy fig, chicken and mushroom salad can be used as a basic formula for healthy grilling. She's a nutritionist, and often includes useful links in her posts at Mostly Eating.









Kalyn gets out her mortar and pestle to make the rub for her herb encrusted grilled salmon, which she says is one of the best-tasting salmon steaks she's cooked. As usual at Kalyn's Kitchen, there are full South Beach details for dieters, and plenty of links for further information.













Ilva, my co-host for Heart of the Matter, loves to grill, and has posted grilled sweet peppers with onion and thyme or peperoni grigliate con cipolle e timo. As always at Lucullian Delights, lovely clear flavours, and beautiful photographs.











The wet weather in England is no excuse: Swaha used her George Foreman grill indoors (in a heatwave) to make Rosemary-garlic-lime tilapia and Barbeque tofu. I'm not sure that my fishmonger stocks tilapia, but I'll definitely ask him. And Swaha discusses the concerns some people have with soy products.


So, lots of things for me to cook at the first sign of an Indian summer ... thanks for joining in, thanks for being so patient about the delayed round-up. And don't forget, September's HotM is fruit and berries ....

HoTM 6: the grill

It's time to announce the theme for August's Heart of the Matter - let's hope the weather improves, because it's grilled food.

Ilva and I have been really thrilled by the response to Heart of the Matter in the six months since we set it up ... so many of you have joined in to help us make a bank of heart-healthy recipes which everyone can consult. The main points to consider in a heart-healthy diet are: drastically reduce saturated fats (found in meat, cheese, butter, cream), increase consumption of friendly fats (found in oily fish), eat lots and lots of fruit and vegetables.

This theme is going to be a huge learning curve for me, because we rarely use the barbecue here - laziness, lack of expertise, I'm not sure of the reason. A few years ago I bought a Weber kettle barbie, and love cooking a chicken or a whole leg of lamb on that for a party, but the children all turn up their noses when I suggest that for a summery lunch for friends. And so we hardly used the Weber last summer, and haven't used it at all this summer. Although that may also be something to do with the fact that, so far, this summer has felt more like winter.

But grilling is a good way to go in a heart-healthy diet - there's lots of scope for cooking vegetables (would somebody consider doing a post on the different ways to bake potatoes on a fire?), fish tastes really good grilled, and there must be good sweets to eat apart from marshmallows on sticks (which, of course, are fine in moderation because they are made with egg whites, and all the saturated fat in an egg is found in the yolk).

So I'm really looking forward to hearing all about the things you cook on your grill: anything and everything from starters to main courses to pudding (which you now all know includes desserts!). And then I'm going to get out there and cook them one by one.

I'm sure many of you know the "rules" by now, but here's a recap: all you have to do is to send me the link to your entry at joannacary AT ukonline DOT co DOT uk before 23 August, make a link to Joanna's Food and to the HotM blog as well if you like. I'll post the round up on both blogs. In order to keep this focused on heart health we ask you to consider this as a one-entry event, i.e. we prefer that you don't use your post for other events as well.

I'm really looking forward to reading all your recipes and tips ...