We ate pretty well over the weekend if I must say so myself.

Saturday: Green Chile Cheeseburgers from Bobby Flay’s Grill It! cookbook. On the side were Belgian Fries. (True “french” fries, fried twice.)

Sunday Lunch: Fresh Jersey Tomato Tart with Baby Greens. Tomatoes and greens bought fresh at the Farmer’s Market in Warwick that morning. And I can’t tell you how wonderful this was! No real recipe, just puff pastry spread with Dijon mustard, slices of Emmentaler cheese, a layer of fresh basil leaves topped with tomatoes.

Sunday Dinner: Fresh local sweet corn grilled in the husk (accompanied by BBQ ribs) and grilled pineapple with a rum butter glaze for dessert.

The rain washed everything clean and brought with it much cooler temperatures yesterday. That’s a good thing and a bad thing. Good because a lovely cool breeze wafted through the house making the curtains billow out, breathing fresh air in; bad because the combination of new rain water and the cooler temps made the pool temperature drop by three or four degrees. boo hoo. It was pretty cloudy for the better part of the day and not very conducive to splashing around the pool. Still, we hung out in the cabana. We feel we have to take every advantage of the pool that we can since all too soon it will be closed for the season. At least that’s the best rationale that we can come up with for spending another Sunday doing not much of anything.

We kicked off our shoes

and proceeded to kick back ourselves and just relax and read while the cool breeze blew through our little poolside oasis.

Of course, with us there is always food involved and this was no exception. I tried out a new recipe Grape-Mint Salsa. It’s made with both green and red grapes, chopped mint, chopped chives, a jalapeno pepper and some lime juice. (Follow the link if you’re interested in the recipe.) Sugared pita chips are served alongside for dipping.

And, if you’re following along with the Robinson’s you should also know that there is always some kind of drink to go along with the food. Another new recipe, this one taken from Rachel Ray’s website: Beer Margaritas. Oh my. I am not a beer drinker at all, but this is enough to change my mind. delicious. refreshing. addictive. Take 4 12-ounce bottles of ice-cold Corona, 1 cup of tequila, one 12-ounce container of limeade concentrate and mix together. Salt glass rims with kosher salt and serve with wedges of lime.

The only downside to these that I can think of is that they go down a lot easier than a normal margarita. Maybe too easily ...

The day got sunnier as it went on and we did take a quick dip, then just floated around for a while.

Our little garden frog was happy too.

For dinner we grilled pizza. The crust comes out cracker thin and crispy. yum. One with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, portobella mushrooms and roasted red peppers,

and one with caramelized onions, gorgonzola cheese and black olives (my particular favorite.

A walk after dinner down the road with the dogs topped off another great (if not very productive) Sunday.

One of the joys of summer is eating al fresco. We particularly like to have Sunday lunch down by the pool. I load everything we’ll need on a tray and make my way carefully down two sets of deck stairs. I like to set a nice table with tablecloth and cloth napkins and a bouquet of flowers cut freshly from my own yard.

This week’s Sunday lunch was a vegetable risotto with fresh peas, asparagus and spinach.

Of course to have a proper Sunday lunch you simply must open up a bottle of nice wine. We enjoyed an Alsatian Gewurztraminer with our risotto.

The weather was lovely, warm but not too hot. After lunch we ended up spending most of the afternoon in the pool. A truly decadent way to spend a summer afternoon.

On Saturday we went to the Farmer’s Market. We really went for fresh beets and goat cheese, but somehow managed to make it home with locally grown rhubarb and strawberries. Those two ingredients spell T-A-R-T; as in Strawberry-Rhubarb Tart.

Take your favorite pie plate

make the tart dough and cut up the rhubarb and strawberries and toss with sugar, strawberry preserves, cinnamon, and cornstarch

bake

and eat!

The recipe can be found here.

I can’t seem to get back in the swing of things here. We’ve spent days getting our “new” kitchen back into some semblance of order. It’s amazing how much thought goes into what goes where. Our cabinet configuration is just different enough to warrant changing things around from what they were. Our new ovens need a little calibration and the cooktop takes some getting used to. Our old ovens had a noisy timer that just kept ringing until you turned it off. More like an alarm than a timer. Now our new oven timer makes a very quiet pinging noise, almost like it doesn’t want to disturb anyone. Oh, excuse me, so sorry to bother you but I believe your food is cooked.

We’ve managed to do a few other things over the long holiday weekend as well. Here are just a few.

Although the weather has not been great—cloudy with spotty rain—we have managed to spend some time outside on our newly refurbished deck and down by the pool in our poolside gazebo.

The gazebo is a not only a nice retreat during the day, but also at night.

And what could be more American on the 4th of July than delicious grilled hamburgers, macaroni salad and sweet corn? And yes, it tasted every bit as good as it looks.

Today finds us moving out of our bedroom and into one of the smaller rooms as tomorrow our master bath undergoes a complete rip out and remodel. It’s going to be so awesome when it’s finished, but until then it’s going to be noisy, dusty, and inconvenient for the next two weeks. Photos to follow, both before and through the process.

Hope you all had a fabulous weekend!