The dog days of summer are upon us and I'm loving every minute of it. The kids are all inside because it's too hot outside, but I'm still cranking up my oven. How else am I supposed to use up all of the delicious fresh fruit that is in season for such a short time? I wake up in the morning imagining what I can concoct today. Tonight my in-laws came over for a casual dinner on the deck that overlooks my bountiful raised vegetable planters. It was too hot to cook our meal inside (except for dessert of course, but I'll get to that later), so we enjoyed delicious local turkey and chicken sausages on the barbecue, slathered in dijon and wrapped in baguette. The peppers and onions were done in a cast iron skillet on the side burner and had a wonderful caramelized and smokey flavour. The salad was fresh from the garden with ripe tomatoes, small cucumber, crisp fuchsia-skinned radishes and sweet vidalia onion (from the market). Cold Italian Pinot-Grigio washed it all down as a light breeze cooled us off. For dessert I made a delightful blueberry tarte-rustique: a free-form pie with sticky juices running out the sides and a mound of shiny, sweet berries escaping from the middle.
After dinner, my mother-in-law and I toured the vegetable boxed, amazed at how much they can produce. Clumps of lettuce, arugula, beets and carrots. Green onions, garlic, tomatoes and green beans. Radishes, broccoli, zucchini and oh, the beautiful, curly, shiny masses of multi-color stemmed swiss chard...oh no! The swiss chard! I knew there was something missing on the table. My beautiful foil package of chard, seasoned with salt, pepper and olive oil is...still on the barbecue. What a terrible burned mess. My heart broke a little when we realized that in the excitement and anticipation of our supper, we forgot to take it off the grill. Tant pis! Supper was fabulous. And I can console myself with the knowledge that there is plenty more where that came from! I'll eat my greens tomorrow.
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