— Susan Malek

I am a huge fan of grilling a road a whole cookbook on grilling called where there's smoke which actually is my favorite of all the books of the eight books that I've written just I was just really in a good spot culinarily when I wrote that book and most of that book is actually about vegetables. So there's a lot in there but things I like well vegetables of the season are always best to me and right now this season of cooking this is when cooking is the best to me because you still have some of the late summer holdovers. I mean even here in Maine I found I Was preparing my Gardens for my yards for for planting my next Road garlic and That I found a couple of zucchinis still hiding out. So we're still having zucchini even in Maine still have some Tomatoes coming in but we've also of course got the butternut squash and the robust greens and kale and found a head of broccoli hiding out in the yard as well leaks are coming in. Really coming in sweet. We're about to have our first Frost and so the flavor of all these vegetables is going to change on the farm and pull those in can't wait for that. So one of my favorites is leaks on the grill, especially if you can find Tender smaller leaks but larger leaks work just as fine take off a couple of the outer layers that get a little more fibrous a little more chewy take off those drop them up saute those anything, you know, simmer those with some water on this on this Stove Top and they're absolutely delicious simmer them in cream for creamed leeks evenly greens up at the top. It works really well, but those tender inner stalks are perfect on the grill, especially when when served with a romesco sauce, which is a great sauce to make on the grill romesco is the sauce that I would recommend you. So you asked about any particular sauces that I would recommend so I'll get back to a couple other vegetables but sauces romesco, which is onions garlic pepper bell pepper Tomatoes pepper Tomatoes bell peppers and tomatoes all of those are typically Roasted off but can be grilled off as well and then pureed with lots of olive oil and almonds and a little bit of salt to season and it becomes this richly textured. You can leave it coarsely chunky and if you'd like to or blend it down to a nice smooth sauce, but that where the sauce literally is a veg serving of vegetables is a nice way to get some good healthfulness into your meal there but the Smoky flavors of it are so incredible if you make it inside drizzle drill a sprinkle it with a little bit of smoked paprika sweet smoked paprika to add that smokiness to it. I make this in large batches and then I freeze it in little plastic baggies about one portion there one one usage each about four portions and that's a great sauce to have another thing that I like to make in these late. Summer months Early Autumn. I still I don't have any basil left in my yard. It's too cold for that. But if you still got late season basil or go to a farmer's market, you might be able to find some in warmer climates make a giant batch of Pesto that freezes up really well. But that is a wonderful component Edition to grilled vegetables and the other I'd say it's just a vinaigrette a great quality vinaigrette use a grid called quality red wine Sherry white wine vinegar a nice olive oil either one with butteriness to it like Coastal olive oils or something a little bit more spice such as olive oil as a come from Inland areas, like Tuscany makes it really nice component, especially when maybe there's some mustard seeds in there whole grain mustard, which is a really great component to build veg. So I mentioned I like to grill leeks. I also love grilling onions. I think that's a really wonderful thing especially red onions. They take smoke and Char so very well and they also soften considerably and pretty easily so you can cook them through on a grill other things that I really like are grilled Hardy greens. So kale especially lesson not to where Dinosaur Kale works wonderfully on a grill any other greens such as Radicchio Kale's Young sort of tender collards would work as well mustard greens turnip greens beet greens. All of these are fantastic on the grill. One thing to notice to leave them in pieces that are large enough to easily work with on the grill, you know, if you cut it all up ahead of time and then throw your salad on the grill, what's gonna happen? Yeah your fires gonna eat a nice meal, right? So leave the leaves intact, you don't need to lay them all out. They can be grilled just in a pile as you're sort of turning them as they go. Let them burn a little bit but a really great prior technique to grilling is to massage them. Yep, massage them with a little bit of olive oil and salt prior to grilling about 10 minutes and just a gentle sort of rubbing them through with that mixture really helps to begin to break down some of those cellular structures draw out some of that moisture that's going to help those greens to steam as well as to cook off of it. So you end up with a nice crunchy beautiful well grilled item. So it's greens. And then the last thing I'd say for just the season butternut squash other squash. It's a really really great on the grill and I've got two ways to produce those prepare this for you one would be to cut them into steaks and lightly steam or simmer them. You can do that in a fortified in an aromatic broth think about simmering them and salted water maybe with some star anise some juniper berry some black peppercorns and bay leaves to give it a nice really sensual spiciness to it. Not not spiced. Well spiced this to it. It wouldn't be spicinessarily. I simmer those until they're just barely cooked just barely knife tender and then dry them off at them drain them Pat them pretty dry brush them with a little oil and then put that on top of the grill get nice grill marks for steak something like that. Whoo, man, that would be absolutely delicious sauce a nice vinaigrette. You've got a really nice vegetable center of the plate there. Speaking of cauliflower steaks. Grill really nicely. I do like to pre-cook mine a little bit in water. It's just they cook a little bit better on the grill and cook through better and avoid some of that chewiness to them. And then the other way to cook Winter's winter Autumn squash and Grill is if you have a charcoal grill now you can do this little gas grill too is I roast whole butternut squashes right down in the Embers and in doing that you you cook them very slowly. It takes about 45 minutes for a typical size butternut squash cook them right in the Embers turning them as needed. The outside will burn yes, that's kind of the point but the inside will take on this incredibly sweet Smoky Ridiculousness. That's just so wonderful and I use that to make a butternut squash wrist about butternut squash hummus. Yeah, mate the same way as you would a chickpea hummus with the tahini I use a little extra olive oil salt and lemon juice but butternut squash can be used as is or with addition to chickpeas half and half but that is just a wonderful wonderful way to put vegetables to eat vegetables off the grill.