Sunday Cookout: Veggie Dogs, Asparagus, and Sweet Potato Fries.

After a long day of gardening, we’ve found the best way to relax is to sit outside on the newly cleaned patio with a cold beer and a little red grill filled with ingredients for dinner.  In this setup, you’ve got no option, really, other than letting the stress melt away as you leaf through a magazine, listening to the birds sing sweetly (or, in the case of our resident grackles, caw incessantly).

For tonight’s cookout, we settled on some family favorites – veggie dogs, asparagus from the farmers’ market, and sweet potato fries! 

First, I prepared the asparagus by slicing off the woody ends.  Usually, I like to skewer the stalks for grilling, but these springtime asparagus spears were much too tiny for skewering!  This is, in fact, an excellent thing – it means they’ll be some of the tastiest, most tender asparagus spears of the year – so I went with it and instead placed them all in a foil packet, marinating them with some olive oil and our favorite, Tony Chachere Cajun seasoning.

Once the grill was hot enough, I laid the packet down atop the grate.  I like to cook the asparagus a nice, long time to get it perfectly tender, so I planned on a 25-minute cook time, turning the packet over every 10 minutes or so.

In the meantime, I put the sweet potato fries in the oven to bake.  I still can’t come up with a good way to keep the fries crispy on the grill!  If you’ve got an idea, I’m all ears – let me know in the comments!

When I had about 10 minutes left in the cooking window, I threw the veggie dogs onto the grill, rotating them every couple of minutes.  As they cooked, I chopped up an onion (my father-in-law used to say that a hot dog without onions was like a day without sunshine) and added the other condiments to the table.  Once the dogs were ready, I took them up and placed two buns on the grates to toast for a minute (and only a minute – don’t turn your back on them, or they’ll burn up!).  Then I removed the buns and the asparagus, and put the fries into a serving bowl, sprinkling them with some salt at the last.

The result?  Well, what do you think?  :)  With such a friendly spread, we couldn’t go wrong!  The food was gone in minutes, and the beer was quick to follow.  Another successful cookout, indeed!

:)