It’s March 3rd and it’s 30° outside.  The weather is saying “stew” but my mind is saying “barbecue.”

That’s me.  Always the rebel.

Ever since I got the propane tank filled, I’ve wanted to cook outside and I just happened to have had a flank steak ready to go. I am reasonably convinced that the only way one can properly cook a flank steak is on the grill.  Okay.  Not really true.    Bavette a L’échalotte comes to mind, but it’s not the quickest…  I do have the luxury most nights of being able to spend the amount of time I want in the kitchen, but some nights the amount of time I want to spend in the kitchen is maybe 20 minutes.  Tops.

While I was thinking grill, I was also thinking tomatoes.  It’s probably 4 months before we’re going to have ripe tomatoes in the garden.  A third of a year.  I have a real aversion to store-bought tomatoes, but I saw some really good ones the other day and succumbed.  I’m glad I did.  They made a great caprese.  I used a fresh buffalo mozzarella and our really expensive Christmas-gift olive oil.

I really started craving summer!

Oh well.

I marinated the flank steak in a bit of (less-expensive) olive oil and a bit of garlic before grilling.

The pasta was a lemon pepper papardelle that after cooking, I made a simple sauce with 1/4 cup heavy cream and the juice of 1 meyer lemon.  I added a bit of lemon zest, salt and pepper, but that really was it.

And it really worked well.