Dinner/Cooking Question (inside for details).

Risotto, wild rice, salad.

You are on the right track, a starch is called for and garlic mashed would hold up to BBQ Chicken.

Maybe a spicy rice pilaf if you are up to it!

SRM

Biscuits are starchy… what about a garden salad, considering that now is the height of the garden’s splendors?

A nice creamy cole slaw would also hold up to the chicken.
Building on what gailcalled said, maybe a “rice salad”..http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/mark_bittman/index.html?scp=2&sq=bittman%20rice%20salad&st=cse

This is a recent entry and you should have a look

SRM

Potato Salad!

Here’s a recipe I found on Google, looks enough like my mother’s. Try to get fresh dill if you can.

BBQ Essential!

Sorry, I meant to put a link on there.

Here

We BBQed last week and my husband makes these things called “hobo packs”. Yum. You slice up some small potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions and you can put whatever other sturdy veggies you like in them (not things that can get mushy easily) some butter and some sort of herb (rosemary works well) with salt and pepper. You can also put anything you’d skew on a shish-kabob in them. You wrap all this in two layers of aluminum foil crimped so it won’t leak. Make them individually sized portions. When it’s time to BBQ, you just throw them on the edge of the grill when you’re still playing with the fire. They’re usually done when the meat’s done. If not you can throw them back on the grill for a few.

They’re great because you can make them up ahead of time and throw them in the fridge. It’s something you don’t have to worry about the day of the party. You can put however many on the fire you want. Others save well for a few days. They’re really nice.

You could do a cold soup like gazpacho to start the meal.

You could also do hors d’oeuvres to serve with cocktails or beverages before dinner. Perhaps some shrimp with spicy cocktail sauce or remoulade sauce.

Have a great dinner party.

Make some homemade baked beans.

@cyndyh,

We did hobo packs with my sons when they were in the Cub Scouts. Include a chicken breast or a fish filet and you have a whole meal in one package. The kids loved ‘em, (the chicken, not the fish)

SRM

Pitchers of Sangria or Margeritas would be yummy, too. Beer or wine could also work. Can you tell I don’t cook?

@srmorgan: That sounds neat. We’ve only ever tried them with mixed vegetables and never tried meat in them. I may have to give that a go.

Herbed oven browned potatoes

Yesterday at a BBQ, I had sliced zucchini and eggplant, brushed with good olive oil and grilled for a few minutes. That saves all that skewering and took only a few minutes to slice. Tomatoes can be grilled quickly too.

I love potato salad but that is also starch and fat (with the mayo.)

@cyndyh,

Re-reading this thread made me think of something else, similar to the hobo packs that you might try. My wife “loves” this.

I take baking potatoes, like an Idaho, or a russet, but not the little round red ‘taters’. Give them a good scrub, cut out any eyes, but don’t peel them. Slice them lengthwise, I like to make long flat planks, about 1/4 to 3/8 inches thick.

Mix up a “dressing” of good olive oil or peanut oil or any oil with some flavor to it. Mince garlic and I mean mince, really fine, add to oil and then load it up with chili powder or paprika so that the mixture looks kind of reddish. The objective is to have a good deal of chili powder and garlic in the oil. Let it macerate for 10 or 15 minutes.

Just before you assemble the dish, add salt and pepper. If you add it to the mixture too early some flavor ends up being off, I don’t know why.

Dip the potato slices in the oil mixture, coating them well and trying to get some of the garlic and chili to adhere to the potato. I wrap four slices in foil, tighten it up and stick on edge of grill for at least 40 minutes on a moderate fire.

Handle them CAREFULLY when you remove them from the fire, the foil is hot and the oil inside is hot also., The potatoes steam in the foil but they absorb the seasonings pretty well. They don’t fry, they steam.

As I said before my wife has me make this at least every other weekend. You could add herbs like tarragon or rosemary and omit the chili powder to get a lighter flavor on the spuds.

One other thing: if you are using charcoal or lump when you are cooking, i.e. not a gas grill, put the foil packs or hobo packs right on the coals, not on the cooking grate. Makes a difference as the smoke seemes to permeate the foil, even though it shouldn’t make it through the foil, so it seems to me.

SRM

@srmorgan: We’ll have to try that, too. We are big fans of the spicy foods. We do use charcoal. We had trouble with hobo packs when we tried putting them directly on the coals. Sweet potatoes will go very quickly from caramelizing to charred-all-to-hell. When we don’t use sweet potatoes in the mix we’ll try the direct method again.

how about a classic corn bread to go with the bbq chicken… maybe a little jalapeno ort chipotle pepper thrown into the batter to spice it up a bit and make thge bread a little more complex. warm cornbread with melted butter on top is soooo good. corn bread is also great when made on a grill in a cast iron skillet!

or you could work on an appetizer. skewered appetizers are alwways fun for dinner parties. grilled shrimp wrapped in proscuitto. little skewers of small “bocincini” style mozzarella balls wrapped in prosciutto and warmed for just a minute on the grill also make a great app.