Mother's Day Feast

We decided to have a backyard barbeque at our new apartment for Mother's Day. The girls had regaled me with a handmade card and we spent the day at the beach at a 3 year old's birthday party. We were ready for some home time.

I stopped at Marukai, a Japanese member's only grocery store, and picked up some delicious looking sale items - Pacific Blue Prawns, fresh Mullet from Taiwan, Ewa sweet corn, and local zucchini. We didn't have any charcoal so we stopped to buy some and I impulsively bought a charcoal chimney. I remembered how Metta laboured over the barbeque to get the charcoal lit - we didn't believe in lighter fluid. I want to do more barbequing since the weather is getting hotter and cooking indoors heats up the house too much. So a chimney seemed like a perfect easy way to deal with the charcoal. Sure enough, Metta had a healthy fire going in minutes and was able to pull out his ukulele and sing fire songs to encourage the fire.

I was inspired to make kebobs as I felt it would be too hard to manage the veggies and shrimp just on the grill. I skewered shrimp with onion, zucchini and Hamakua Coast cocktail tomatoes. The kebobs were salted and dizzled with organic extra virgin olive oil. I also made some pure shrimp on a stick. If you know me, you know I love food on sticks. I simply salted the mullet and tucked a few bits of onion into the cavity. I wanted to taste the fish as cleanly as possible as I haven't had mullet before. As you can see, the skin crisped beautifully. It's a good fish to feed our 2 and 3 year old as the bones are not too small. You can easily see or feel them except for the meat near the collar where there were more small bones. We stuck to the belly and tail area for the girls. They devoured more than half the fish themselves.

I soaked the corn in it's husk in water for about 30 minutes. I grilled it until the outside husks were blackened - about 15 minutes. Then, the hot corn was rolled in organic butter for a delicious crisp corn on the cob. The kebobs jostled for space on the grill while the girls ate corn and mullet. Afterwards, there was plenty of heat so I pulled out a zucchini and 2 chicken breasts to roast. They were done beautifully and there were still plenty of coals left. Metta suggested roasting potatoes. I put 5 russet potatoes on the grill and turned them every 15 minutes or so til they were soft. Still plenty of coals left so I scoured my pantry. I ended up scooping all the coals to one side and putting 2 heads of garlic on. They started to burn so I put them off to the side and improvised a barbeque lid by putting my roasting pan lid on. They roasted near the coals for about an hours before I pulled them off. The food became the next nights dinner as Chinese Chicken salad and roasted garlic with pita chips. Yum.