Summer Weekend

This past weekend was absolutely beautiful, and we soaked it up by being outside a lot.  Once we were home from camping on Friday afternoon, and we had met our adorable new nephew, we went home to make supper.  We were craving vegetables, so we threw veggie skewers on the BBQ, along with portobello mushrooms stuffed with broccoli, green onions and cheese.

Plants for supper - mmm!

On Saturday morning we got up early and went to the farmers' market.

This empanada was our breakfast:

We ran into our niece Remi (well, and her parents 😄) and visited for a few minutes, before carrying on with our shopping.

We stopped at the butcher too, and then dropped the meat and veggies off at home, before heading out again to the grocery store to grab the rest of our week's groceries.

We were home by about 1:30, and enjoying lunch in the backyard.

And that's where we stayed for the rest of the day and evening.  Our afternoon snack was a bowl of shelling peas, which we had snagged at the market that morning.

It took about 15 minutes inside in the evening for us to get prepped for dinner.  I got the potatoes ready, and Christopher made a BBQ sauce.

We cooked ribs low and slow, and sauced them up multiple times throughout their time on the grill.  The potatoes were cooked slowly too, with parsley, green onion, salt, pepper, and a generous amount of butter.

Farmers' market cukes on the side:

When I was little, someone taught me that these little cucumbers are best when first sprinkled with salt and rubbed together like so ...

I do this any time I eat these now, and it always brings back memories of childhood.  Am I the only one who does this, or is it actually a thing?

After making our banana French toast on Sunday, we were back in the yard for another day of sunshine, music and relaxing.  We ate lunch outside again:

For dinner we grilled salmon and golden beets, and had those with a couscous salad:

Have you been eating any of your meals outside?  How was your weekend?  What did you do?

Grill Masters

Grilled asparagus is the best kind of asparagus.

Last night we also threw some fish on the BBQ.  I mixed sesame oil, soy, oyster sauce, sake, ginger, garlic and gochujang and brushed this on salmon.  We then rested this on a bed of celery and onion, and placed it on tinfoil over the grill.

Also, a first for me, was rice done on the BBQ.  Christopher cut up veggies including carrot, pepper, green onions, mushrooms and cucumber.  He tossed these with shallot oil and spices, and threw in leftover rice, wrapping it all in tinfoil.  It was sooooo good!  I had also never had cucumber cooked on the grill, and I discovered I really like cooked cucumber.

I found this last little chunk of haloumi cheese in the fridge and since I know how much Christopher hates "little bits of things" being left in the fridge etc., I thought we'd grill that up too.

Have you ever had rice cooked on the BBQ?  Cucumber?