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Let me explain a couple of things as I begin this Friday Fave post.

1. Barbecue is the actual spelling of the word, but in today's world, Barbeque is also accepted! I found this on 3 different sources. I tend to use the "que" spelling, but for this post I will use the traditional spelling. (Sorry if I slip).
2. This is National Barbecue Month. And, we know that if you are speaking of purely real barbecue, you are speaking of slowly cooking and smoking meat over indirect heat for many hours. It is delicious and a couple of states out there claim to have the best barbecue in all of the land. Grilling is the quicker method of using a device called a barbecue in a more quick fashion over direct heat.

     One of my sons is really good at smoking pulled pork and we all love that.  But, today we are going to actually focus on grilling for our Friday Faves and share some of our favorite things to throw on the barbie! After all, school if almost out and things are heating up.  Memorial Day is coming and after that a plethora of other reasons to cook out on the grill will present themselves.  So, let's get started! 

I love grilled chicken and corn. Last year I shared a grilling post with some of my favorite recipes that we had enjoyed at Alicia and Adrian's house. Just thinking about these recipes is making my mouth water. The Cilantro-Lime butter to slather on corn and rice is so good! This post also includes shrimp on skewers which is one of Alicia's favorites and grilled pineapple which is Lindsey's choice.

Alicia loves surf and turf and says that she loves a good steak. I have recently perfected (in my humble opinion) a great way to grill steak that comes out so tender and delicious.

1. An hour before cooking, take your steaks out and dry them off. Sprinkle on coarse sea salt liberally, some chopped garlic and some rosemary. Let them sit at room temperature for an hour.
2. Just before grilling, rinse off the seasonings! You heard me right! It will be perfectly seasoned, don't worry!
3. Place on the grill or in your grill pan, Grill for about 4 or 5 minutes on one side, depending on the heat of your grill, the thickness of the steak and how rare you like your steak to be. (My husband likes his on there for much longer than I do.) Flip and grill the other side. Put a pat of butter on the cooked side and let it melt into the steak.
4. Remove from the grill onto a platter and allow to rest for a few minutes. It will be tender and delicious!

     Maddy loves veggies of course, so the grilled corn and other grilled vegetables are right up her ally.  
     Even if you aren't firing up the barbecue, you can grill indoors on your grill pan.  I wanted a grill pan for years, then, when I finally got a new set of cookware, they came with a grill pan! I was thrilled! This one is similar to mine. This evening I did some zucchini in the grill pan. It was really good! Using the grill pan with vegetables makes them so much more tasty and different than just the normal way of sauteing them. And the grill marks make them look so pretty. 

    Grilled Zucchini is easy to do. Just slice it length wise.  Heat up your grill pan and add some olive oil when it is hot.  Lay your zucchini in the pan on the diagonal to get the nice grill marks. 

    Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and parsley.  It just takes a couple of minutes per side to get tender slices with beautiful grill marks. 

     Finally, when it comes to grilling, I think my husband would choose a hamburger every time.  How about you?  What will you choose? It's time to start thinking about it and to start celebrating National Barbecue Month! If you need a grill or a grill pan, here are a few choices to fit whatever your needs are!  Have fun! 

     And here are lots of choice on Target.com! 

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If you are thinking, "what? Pumpkin? In MAY?!?!?!" Then clearly, you don't know me. Yes, pumpkin, in May, because why not? Pumpkin is too good to be confined to one season, pumpkin should be consumed all year long.

A few weeks back a woman I go to church with let several people in our ward (congregation) know that she had several CASES of pumpkin. Yes, cases. Her neighbor has a job at the nearby air force base. He is somehow involved in the stocking of the commissariat, which results in her being the recipient of extra supplies.

Well of course, I jumped on the chance to get some free pumpkin.

Now, my husband definitely thinks I have a problem and need to go to Pumpkin Lovers Anonymous. I have no regrets. Well, armed with all of this pumpkin I needed to bake a cake for someone recently and I thought, a pumpkin bundt cake would be perfect. All I have to say is, I was not wrong. You are going to love this cake. You will love it in May like you will love it in September, October, and November. In fact, I believe you will love it in any month you choose to eat it.

There is something so elegant about Bundt cakes. I mean, they come out with a design with no real effort on your part. Just pour the batter into the Bundt pan and voila, you will have yourself a pretty looking cake!

Of course, pumpkin cake calls for cream cheese frosting. The frosting and the chopped walnuts are what put this cake over the top! Normally I am not a fan of nuts in my dessert. You could leave the walnuts  out and be totally okay. However, I used candied walnuts, and the crunch is just perfect.

​So, summertime is upon us. You know you have a BBQ to go to and you volunteered to bring dessert. Bring this cake. You will not regret it. I promise you.

Nutty Pumpkin Cake

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Hey! Alicia here with another recipe from a country of my ancestry. This month we're doing Denmark. Have you tried æbleskivers yet? They were so good and fun to make and eat.

This week we made smørrebrød, the Danish open faced sandwich.

In my research of Danish food, I kept coming across smørrebrød, an open faced sandwich that is basically the national lunch of Denmark. Believed to have started in the late 19th century when factory workers would pile leftovers onto a dense rye bread (rugbrød) to bring for lunch. From there a tradition was born, and it comes with some rules.

Smørrebrød, which literally translates to butter bread, always starts off with a rectangle of Danish rye. Rugbrød is dense and full of seeds and cracked wheat unlike what you normally think of rye. This makes using it for a regular sandwich too much. It's also difficult to find in the US so I had to opt for traditional rye. Next time I might try using a hearty wheat bread as a substitute, because when I tried to cut my rye into the traditional rectangle, it didn't work very well.

Once your foundation is set, you apply a hearty layer of butter. now that your bread is butter you have smørrebrød, and now you can add different toppings.  Toppings should be added with thinner toppings at the bottom and chunkier on top. If you're eating more than one smørrebrød, you should always start with the herring (the traditional starting fish of smørrebrød) and other seafood, move onto other meats next and end with your cheese smørrebrød. You don't use your hands to pick up the sandwich, rather you must use utensils to enjoy the smørrebrød.  

One chef I watched on Youtube said with a good smørrebrød you shouldn't be able to see the bread.

We didn't have herring, but I did get baby shrimp which I combined with hardboiled eggs and a delicious dill mayo. Our next course was roast beef with pickles, red onions, and prepared horseradish. Last we finished up with a cheese, apple, and slivered almond smørrebrød. The cheese we used was Grand Cru. It tastes similar to gruyere but is cheaper. I also found Danish bleu cheese, which I thought was serendipitous. But it is really strong so I don't recommend using as much as I did.

I love these smørrebrød! They were so delicious and filling. I love the artistry that goes into their preparation (though I think I went a bit overboard with the shrimp). I don't have any recipes for you but there are tons all over the internet. I say get creative and have fun with your smørrebrød
                                                                         toppings! Let us know if you give it a try!