Chilled-Out Cucumber-Asparagus Salad

This, gentle reader, is the time of year when Brooklyn girls without central A/C or outdoor spaces with grills do not want anything to do with cooking. Thus it happens that I have not set foot in my kitchen (other than to get a cold beer out of the fridge, of course) in, oh, three weeks? However, I managed to prepare a light summer meal tonight without actually turning on the oven, and induced only a minimal amount of brow perspiration.

The entrée consisted of pan-grilled boneless, skinless chicken breasts (an extremely rare choice for me, as BSCB tend to get dried out easily and lack flavor) that I had pounded flat(-ish) in a Ziploc bag along with garlic cloves, and then marinated overnight in said bag, with a coating of olive oil flavored with salt, paprika, and said garlic cloves. Fairly ho-hum, right? That’s why this post is focused on the side dish, a super-easy cucumber-asparagus salad—chill to make, in both senses of the word—which would not-so-coincidentally be cheap and easy to multiply and bring to a 4th of July cookout/picnic/barbecue. (And yes, gentle reader, I actually prepared a dinner that did not contain carbs…it’s that hot!)

So, here's how this works.

To brine or not to brine

Well, it's a question.

I had never thought about brining, until I heard about it from my lovely co-blogger Kitty, and then I was intrigued. I had a barbecue coming up and thought I would give it the old college try. Of course by the old college try, I do NOT mean drinking box wine directly from the box and playing beer pong, but feel free to partake in those activities after the grill is turned off.

I have, recently, developed a fondness for drumsticks. Don't ask me why I didn't like them in my earlier years, I have no explanation for my strange, youthful preference for boring breast meat. Thinking back on my requests, as a kid, for only breast meat, I actually think it can be attributed to my mother's excellent cooking. As a child I had no idea that breast meat could be dry and tasteless until I was much much older- THAT'S how good my mom is. Seriously.

Grilled Flatbread

Despite dire hurricane predictions, I went to Provincetown, on the very farthest tip of Cape Cod, with my cousin over Labor Day. The whole weekend turned out gorgeously sunny and cloudless, with the exception of a rainy Friday night…which we made the most of by grilling out on the deck.

Now, since I have no outdoor cooking options at home in Brooklyn, when I am near a grill, I want to use it as many ways as I can. This dinner involved grilled pork loin with marmalade glaze, grilled asparagus, grilled corn on the cob, mashed potatoes with shallots and sour cream (not on the grill—not everything can be on the grill), and grilled flatbread.

I’ve loved making bread on the grill for years, but always consulted a recipe. In the “rainy day” spirit that ultimately anticlimactic Hurricane Earl begat, I decided to wing it by making up my own, all seat-of-pants-like. Gentle reader, it turned out awesome. The process does take a couple hours, although 75% of that time is spent waiting for the dough to rise. (It has to rise twice; I strongly suggest reading through this whole recipe before you start so you can time-manage.)