Roasted on the Grill Potatoes and Mushrooms

When I first started making this dish I received questions from the assembled mass of adults. If we were eating with the kids, they asked, how could we make a potato dish with mushrooms. Their tender little taste buds wouldn't allow it, I was told. My first reaction was that the children should learn to like mushrooms or suffer. Even I realized very quickly that this wasn't a great, or realistic, solution. So I thought about how I could make everyone happy. The recipe that follows is the result of this thinking.

Before working on making both kids and adults happy, I wanted to briefly talk about roasting vegetables in a pan on a grill. The basic principal here is that your grill can double as an oven and it is possible to roast vegetables while you grill meat. The most important thing to remember when doing this is that vegetables often take much longer to cook than meat: start them early!!!

INGREDIENTS

New Potatoes, 2 pounds, cut into 1/4" slices with the skin on
Whole mushrooms, cleaned
Tablespoon of fresh chopped garlic (I use a mini-prep)
Tablespoon of salt
3 tablespoons of olive oil
2 teaspoons of thyme

EQUIPMENT YOU WILL NEED

Grill with adjustable heating zones and cover
9 x 12 roasting pan (or something like it)
Aluminum foil

INSTRUCTIONS
Liberally coat the pan in oil. Add the potato slices and mushroom. Add the garlic, salt and thyme and mix around. Add still more oil and allow everything to get a bit coated. Cover with aluminum foil. While you should try to cover it reasonably tightly it will be important to remove and recover the dish so you can turn it while it cooks.

Preheat a grill such that the grill is as hot as it can get while still only being on low heat directly over the area where the vegetables will go (I have a Weber and keep the back two burners on low and the front on high).

Place the pan on the grill and cover the grill. The frill should be at least 450 degrees. Ignore for at least 10 minutes. After this, occasionally (every five minutes or so) open the grill, uncover the dish, and turn potatoes and mushrooms so they don't burn. Try to keep the potatoes on the bottom of the dish after turning so they brown somewhat. It takes about 40 minutes to cook the dish. It would take less time if you never opened the grill, but I was cooking meat during this time, and you probably will, too. Its ready when the potatoes are a bit brown and soft.

If you have children who don't like mushrooms, it is easy to separate the two vegetables. We did (see photo). They ate the potatoes. We ate both. Problem solved.