When we head to up Lake Champlain every year to celebrate my dad’s birthday we always plan a nice meal for him.  It is usually swordfish and steak.  In the days running up to the dinner I hadn’t a clue what to make but fortunately we were able to come up with some ideas as we headed to the store.  And whatever we come up with it all has to fit together like a puzzle as there isn’t much space to cook a big meal on a RV.   You have to keep your elbows in when you have a few cooks whipping up dishes.  It used to be my mum and me but now my daughter has joined in.  Which is wonderful, but keep the elbows in!  🙂  And because the kitchen is small and doesn’t come with a dishwasher it is important to keep the dirty dishes to a minimum.  Logistics is the word of the day.

My husband came up with the idea to use garlic and worcestershire sauce for the steak.  I thought an avocado smash would be perfect for the swordfish.  Off my mum and I went to get the ingredients and when I got to the fish section I saw they had deeply discounted the swordfish.  More than 50%!  I was a bit nervous as when you buy fish you don’t want it to smell fishy.  As I can’t smell things I thought it would be best to ask how long they had displayed the fish.  Two days so I thought ok I’ll risk it.  I really didn’t want a situation where you get what you pay for.

I prepped the steak first.  I sliced the garlic thinly.

After making several cuts into the steak I stuffed the garlic in and then seasoned with salt and pepper.  I put the steak in a bowl with the worcestershire sauce to marinate for about 45 minutes.  This is as simple as it gets!

The avocado smash is very easy as well.  I thought I had picked two soft avocados at the store.  I wasn’t quite right there.  Fortunately there was enough soft bits to make this work.  I coarsely chopped the avocado into a bowl and added red onion, cilantro, lime juice, and a bit of cayenne pepper and cumin.

In addition to the steak and swordfish we were also having a wonderful potato salad made by my mum, grilled portobello caps, and grilled veg.  The only thing not being cooked on a grill was the potato salad.  The grill was this big.

So the veg wrapped in foil started first and I staged everything else.

It all came together.  I grilled the mushrooms first with the veg then kept those warm, next the steaks went on while the veg was finishing.  Those got dusted with a bit of cayenne pepper as well for a bit of heat.  They cooked well but as it was a small grill I couldn’t get the sear I normally do.  Then I removed the veg and seasoned the swordfish with salt, pepper, cayenne, and cumin and got that on the grill.

I spooned a bit of the avocado smash onto the fish to serve.  I have to say for a deeply discounted bit of fish, this was really good.  I am glad I took the chance.

Later we finished the evening with my mum’s homemade brownies and some ice cream.  The brownies were delicious.  🙂