Use Them While They're Hot!: Learning to Grill Ahead

Last night I sat outside at the dinner table, noshing with utter abandon on this glorious baba ghanoush made straight from the grill (thank you once again, Melissa Joulwan!), when I had an epiphany:

It's summer, it's hot, and cooking outside on the grill is really the way to go. Food magically tastes twice as good cooked over smoky charcoal. But I have to be fair to Grillmaster Reiton. Standing over 600° coals in 90° weather night after night probably isn't as much fun as sitting on the deck with a chilled glass of rosé in hand (which is what I do). Sooooo (here comes the epiphany)...

Why not grill several meals' worth of stuff all at once? Use those coals once for a week of food?

It's kind-of like that cooking fad that my mom and aunt got into about ten years ago, where you would do this huge shop and cook like a mad woman for an entire day to make meals that would last you a month.

Except I love to cook. And I love to eat fresh. And, call me impractical or inefficient or what-have-you, I don't really freeze a lot of food. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I find that the freezer changes the texture of foods in ways that I don't like, so instead I tend to grocery shop for the week.

So if I shop for the week, why not grill for the week?

For example, my dinner menus for this week call for a number of things that I could have grilled last night and then reheated or eaten cold. Here's a snapshot of my notes for dinner this week:

(Yes, I had a dinner party Sunday!)

A more efficient grill could look something like this: before Grillmaster Reiton grilled our chicken and eggplant for last night's dinner, we could have grilled the ribs (later reheated at low heat in a foil packet in the oven), the butternut (finished cooking the mash in the oven), the steak (grilled slightly underdone and reheated it in a cast iron skillet) and the burgers (also slightly underdone and finished in a skillet).

Then Chef Reiton could also be sitting with a chilled glass of rosé, eating this silky, smoky dip with crisp, cool veggies as an appetizer, now that a decent chunk of time was added back to our summer evenings.  

I think I'll give this a go and see what we think, then I'll get back to you to let you know if it's successful.

I hope it is. I mean, really, I'd rather not be drinking alone...