Holiday Weekend

Labor Day is our first official holiday as a married couple!  Alex did not have the whole weekend off, so we couldn't head back to Michigan to be with our family.  But he did have enough parts of the weekend off that we could have some fun together.  We headed into the weekend with the most time-honored of summer traditions: a backyard BBQ on Friday night. Nothing fancy.  Just the two of us.  But we are still enjoying the novelty of having a grill, so it was fantabulous!  The menu: tomato and cucumber salad, grilled chicken, grilled corn-on-the-cob, and of course, grilled peaches. 

For this light and summery salad, toss some fresh tomatoes and cucumber slices with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and your favorite spice mix.  We used Demetri's Greek seasoning.

Grilling corn-on-the-cob was a new technique for us.  It was fairly easy and very flavorful.  I soaked the corn in their husks in a pot of water for about six hours then put them right onto the grill for about 20 minutes.  When you serve them, the husks will fall right off.

 And since I still had quite a few peaches on the verge of spoiling, I made a peach crisp to use them up using a recipe from my trusty Better Homes and Garden Newlywed cookbook.  Alex liked the crisp better.  I liked the cobbler better.  Hmmmm... how to solve this debate in the future?

Saturday Alex had to work a 14 hour shift.  Ew.  And it was our third day of 100+ degree temps.  Double ew.  Fortunately, the city we live in has a wonderful community pool, so I was able to get some much needed relief from the heat.  It would have been better with company, but it's hard to argue with reading a book by the pool...

Sunday Alex had the whole day off!  Oh the possibilities...  I had lots of plans, but Mother Nature saw fit to foil most of them with a cold front and massively severe thunderstorms.  We went shopping all day instead of the outdoor exploits I had intended.  Oh darn.  Crate and Barrel.  The Container Store (feeding my OCD tendencies...).  Trader Joe's.  No complaints here.  That evening we decided to christen one of our exciting wedding gifts: an All-Clad pizza stone.  I had found a recipe for smoked turkey barbecue pizza awhile back so that was our inaugural recipe. Refrigerated pizza dough from Trader Joe's.  Brush on a mixture of olive oil, cilantro, and garlic powder using a basting brush.  Cook on HOT stone at 400 for 5 minutes.  Add barbecue sauce, shredded smoked turkey, red onions (we skipped this), mozzarella, and gouda cheese.  Bake on stone for 15-20 minutes.  The recipe was a great combination of flavors.  The dough was delicious and crispy.  We will definitely make again.  And definitely continue buying our dough from Trader Joe's.  Love that store.

We need to finesse the details a bit, especially getting the dough round.  But a great first attempt!

Monday Alex did not technically have the day off, but he was about to start the night shift for a week, so he didn't have to be at the hospital until 8:00 pm.  This means he was home all day.  Happy face.  But I have to spend the night in our house alone for the first time.  Sad face.   We made the most of the time we had together and the fact that, although cloudy and cool, it was not raining today and headed off to Hidden Valley Fruit Farm for their 'Grape Escape Festival.'  Where we come from, Labor Day weekend usually means peaches.  But when in Rome, right?  It was a cute little farm and country store with lots of fresh produce to buy.  Initially the plan was to pick grapes since neither of us had done that before.  But you had to pick a ridiculously huge amount of grapes for that, and they would just go bad with only the two of us to eat them.  So we walked around for a bit, enjoyed the live music, had a couple of sweet snacks including some wonderful grape gelato, and bought a small portion of the grapes they had for sale.

Nothing like the fresh grapes we had in California but still a satisfyingly sweet ending to a wonderful weekend with my husband!