Some food experiments: Grilling and sweet potato burritos

Since I found the list of 101 ideas for the grill, I've been experimenting with different grilled foods. My results: grilled asparagus, great, but don't overcook it. Grilled watermelon, not great. But my parents' dog Amos really, really liked that one--probably something about the bratwurst flavor that was infused in the watermelon after grilling. In fact, Amos liked it so much that he scarfed down all his food for the first time since I got here, with minimal coaxing! Grilled avacado is ok, but it didn't add a lot to the normal avacado flavor. Grilled peppers, very good. All in all, my favorite grill experiment so far is definitely the asparagus. I just tossed it in olive oil with sea salt (since my parents don't have kosher salt and I was house-sitting during this particular experiment) and a little bit of pepper, and grilled it for probably less than 5 minutes. The coals were super hot from the chimney starter (I'm not ready for gas or the green egg grill yet...they seem much more likely to blow up in my face when I don't know which buttons to hit) so the stalks directly over the coals were already burnt by that point.

My other experiment for the week was sweet potato burritos. I was very skeptical about these, even though they are labeled "addictive." I'm very picky about how I like sweet potatoes, and I wasn't entirely sure about the idea of a burrito essentially completely filled with smooshy food. I decided to take my chances since all the reviews were so positive, and I'm glad I did. I made all the fillings from scratch (no canned sweet potatoes or refried beans) since I heard that made a difference, and they were delicious. My cautions--they are best when you make sure the beans and the sweet potatoes are mixed well inside the tortilla, to make sure you're not getting a full bite of sweet potatoes and another full bite of beans. Make sure you have enough cheese, as the sharpness balances out the rest of the flavors. And, if you're using the smaller tortillas, make a few of these! They're good enough to eat several of and not as filling as they look. These are vegetarian, but I think you could easily add shredded pork or chicken to them if you wanted.