it is to hot!

It is HOT where I live. Really, really hot. I know the navy will take me away from this hotness eventually, but right now, it is BLAZING hot in this town.

So what do you do when it is hot. Not much! And the most important thing is you cook outside if you can.

So I decided on a quick and easy grilled dinner of chicken apple sausages, eggplant, tomato avocado salad, and grilled bananas for dessert. I did use commercial chicken apple sausages and commercial whole wheat hot dog buns. I'm planning on tackling homemade buns in the next few weeks, but it has been a long day, so we used the name brand "whole wheat" ones.

First the tomato avocado salad



I had a couple of tomatoes on my counter that needed to be used yesterday probably. They were from a local farmer and SO SO good! There is nothing better than a real ripe tomato in the middle of the summer that has been allowed to ripen on the vine. I also picked up a couple of avocados at the store today. When I make this salad I always get avocados that are still fairly firm to the touch. While you want to have the skin yield, only slightly so that the avocado holds its texture in the salad and it doesn't turn into guacamole. Basically it is diced avocado and diced tomato with freshly milled sea salt, fresh ground pepper, and a little olive oil. I almost always add fresh cilantro, but for some reason I didn't buy any today. I don't have an herb garden, even in pots here, because our time here is so unstable. We could be moving with little or no notice in the next couple of months, or be here another year.

Now onto my FAVORITE way to eat eggplant



I always salt my eggplant an hour or so before I cook it. Lay the pieces out and liberally sprinkle kosher salt all over them. It helps to remove the bitterness and makes them nice and creamy when you cook them.

Get your grill nice and hot for this one. While the grill is heating make a marinade out of olive oil, dry thyme, and very fine chopped garlic. Use a basting brush and paint the eggplant and place oil side down on the hot flame. while it is cooking paint the other side. The garlic gets crispy and delightful! We have this ONCE A WEEK, it is so good!

I am a huge banana person and seriously would eat like four a day if I could!


these guys don't look so appealing, but ohhhhh are they lovely. They are even better with vanilla or chocolate ice cream. take your bananas and split them in half, then again lengthways. then pour a bit of honey on the flat side of the banana. Sprinkle on top of that some sugar (I use turbanado for this, succanat is WAY to strong) and cinnamon. let that set for a while to "melt" Then put them flat side down on a HOT grill. Usually they get lovely grill marks, but I was in a hurry tonight to get my bananas!

There we go. A delicious and healthy dinner for my family! Yummy