A Late Father's Day Dinner

My mom and step-dad came up for the weekend to watch the girls so that Dave and I could get a few things done and go out on Saturday night. We are so grateful. Furthermore, we never had an opportunity to wish my step-dad a happy fathers day so we decided to cook fillet mignon on the grill in his honor.

It was supposed to be an easy meal to prepare. Grilled steaks, oven steak fries, and grilled zucchini - no problem. But it turned out to be one of those meals where things keep going kind of wrong. Let's list all my errors, shall we?

1) The fries were supposed to take a half an hour to cook, but were mysteriously burnt after only 15 minutes or so. Not only did this throw the timing off but also meant I needed to figure out a substitute in a limited amount of time. The best I could come up with was cous-cous from a box. In the end I put the least burnt fries on the table, too.

2) There were these strings tied around the fillets and although a part of me knew that they must there for a reason, the truth is that I can't normally afford fillet mignon and was a little unfamiliar with their purpose. So I removed them. Wrong! Fortunately, I only disassembled two of the steaks before catching on.

3) I had some beautiful, large zucchinis that a friend had given me from her garden. Zucchini isn't one of those foods that people normally get excited about but I thought it would fill out the meal nicely enough and grilling them would be easy. By the time I put them on the grill, however, my confidence was shaken and I started to worry they weren't enough. This resulted in me frantically throwing a bowl of frozen peas int eh microwave at the last minute. Then we didn't even eat all the zucchini.

Maybe I was the only one who thought so, but the zucchini was surprisingly good. Usually I just slice it and sautee in a little olive oil with some salt and pepper but the last time I did this I didn't really enjoy eating it so much. I think grilling is how I am going to cook zucchini for at least the rest of the summer.

Grilled Zucchini - Serves 4

1 large or 2 small zucchinis
Butter
Garlic Salt
Pepper

Slice zucchini lenghthwise in 1/4 inch-thick strips. Rub one side with butter and sprinkle the garlic salt and pepper on top. Grill until tender.