Noodle Salad

This recipe is inspired by some “Asian” noodle salad from a local market’s prepared food section. I grab it when I swing by for their house-made frozen cod cakes. I did the online search for “Asian” noodle salad, mixed and matched a few things and came up with this.

It seemed to go over well and the leftovers were as good, if not a bit better, after a couple of days rest in the fridge.

Noodle Salad
Servings: 10-12
Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: 90 minutes

Foil-pack Potatoes, Carrots and Onions

This recipe comes from my teenage adventures in Boy Scouts. Weekend camping trips often featured a Friday night foil dinner. Before leaving home we arrange thinly sliced potatoes and onions with a hamburger on top inside an aluminum foil pouch. We’d hike into the campsite, start a fire, set-up our tents and then place the foil packs on top of coals. 20-30 minutes later you had dinner.

I make this in the summer, when I don’t want to heat up the house any more than necessary. Some of the veggies get a little burn along the edges; folks jostle each other for those tasty bits.

Foil-pack Potatoes, Carrots and Onions
Servings: 8
Prep time: 15 minutes
Total time: 45 minutes

Special equipment: 2 40″x18″ heavy duty aluminum foil

Ingredients:

• 3 lbs. yellow potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/4″ slices
• 2 lbs. carrots, peeled and cut on the bias into 1/4″ slices
• 1 or 2 lg. onions, peeled, halved and cut into 1/4″ slices
• 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
• 3-4 springs fresh thyme
• kosher salt and black pepper

Directions:

1. Light your gas grill so that you have a hot side and cool side. Allow it preheat for 15 minutes (about the time it takes to assemble to foil package).
2. Combine vegetables, oil and thyme in a large bowl. Sprinkle generously with kosher salt and black pepper. Using hands toss ingredients until well coated with oil.
3. Overlap the 2 pieces of foil to make a large plus-sign. Transfer the coated vegetables to the center of the foil plus-sign. Bring the two ends of the one piece of foil together and crimp the ends tightly around the vegetables. Repeat with the second piece of foil. You should now have a large foil package.
4. Place the foil pack on the hot side of the grill. Close the cover and allow it to cook for 5 minutes. Flip the foil pack, cook again on the hot side, covered, for another 5 minutes.
5. Move the foil pack to the cool side of grill, flipping once again. Cook for 20 more minutes, flipping the foil pack after 10 minutes.
6. Now, if you are a trusting individual, transfer the foil pack to a large serving bowl and bring it inside. Let it rest for 5 minutes before opening and serving. Remove the thyme and, you know, a dollop of butter never hurt the taste of veggies.
7. If you aren’t that trusting then carefully uncrimp the foil pack and check the donness of the vegetables. Then bring the foil pack inside cause you just found it was done. 🙂

Notes:
The number of onions you use depends on your preference.

You can leave out the carrots if you like or throw some other 1/4″ sliced root veggies in there instead.

Be careful when opening the foil pack, there will be a fair amount of steam built up inside. At a minimum it will fog your glasses, it could give you a nasty burn if you aren’t diligent.