Happy Friday everyone.  Let's get right down to business shall we?  I suggested we talk about how to serve outside and keep the clean up down to a minimum.

FIRST-Get over the trash/recycling thing for the moment!  I'm am known as MS. Recycle in our house, but during this latest heat wave and dust bowl, I'm relaxing a bit.  It's also much safer to use disposables for outdoor service.

Case in point-the grandkids (ages 1-1/2 and 2-1/2) were over and both were enjoying the yard, but must have used their crazy cars to ram into the table about a dozen times during the course of an hour-and-a-half.  I might have been a nervous wreck if I had brought out the regular dishes and silverware. (Visions of forks going through eyes, and plates dispersing into shards and entering their limbs comes to mind)  But since I used disposable dinnerware-the worst thing that happened was Auntie Sam's iced tea wound up all over Sunshine.  

SECOND-Organize and carry things out on a large tray or plastic carry-all.  I literally walked 3 miles to get dinner in and out of the house when the grandkids were over, but it would have been twice that had I not used the stack and carry method.  I used my biggest cookie sheet, piled it with place mats, dishes, boxed plastic ware and plastic cups, BBQ sauce, serving utensils and a plastic tub filled with ice.  I used the cookie sheet to get the pork chops off the BBQ and bring it to the table and the empty sheet was then used to keep the bugs off the food.

THIRD-Speaking of bugs-I'm about to go invest in some of those "OFF" candles.  We hate eating and fanning off the flies-I'm sure you do as well, so keep those on the table and ready for use-all the time.

And last, but not least, think cold and refreshing for dinner.  I know I've mentioned serving berries and cool whip and such-but be creative!  My grandsons loved that we served sno-cones after dinner.  Honestly, so did Uncle Adam, Auntie Sam, Grandpa and Grandma.  I can tell you for sure-Grandma finally got some relief from the hot flashes that have been way too prevalent the last few weeks.

Now, if only I could use this knowledge to get my contractor to finish even one bathroom?

Honestly, I can't say I'm all back to being "incredibly organized" me-but I'm trying, really hard.  I don't know about any of you across the country (or those of you who are in a different part of our world wide web family), but between the heat, the new writing assignments, the grandkids and the new writing assignments and (more of this than anything) the bathrooms being torn up-Life is making me very TIRED.

This past week-as if I believed it for even a single minute-bathroom one was supposed to be up and running and gorgeous.  Ha! And Double Ha!  So, not only am I hot and tired-I'm disgusted.

So what did I do, food wise?  Well-forget about baking cookies for the guys' lunches.  I also took this time to realize that it is much cooler to eat on my patio outside than in my kitchen.  I'm not sure about any other married, middle-aged and post-menopausal woman out there, but my husband feels the area we need to cut back expenses in is in the A/C!  Egads, I can't take it.  

We've been eating outside-still hot, but shady and a bit of a warm breeze wafting through.  Thankfully, everyone's in agreement on this.  I have been grilling more than usual and I'm taking to serving cold side dishes.

Some of the ones that seem to be going over well:  Asian cole slaw, Thai pasta salad, lemon-garlic broccoli (we usually eat this hot, but it's great cold!), my spinach salad, potato salad dressed with fat-free Italian dressing (I used the microwave to do the potatoes) and a very nice mushroom, tomato and feta salad with just a bit of raspberry vinaigrette.

The hardest part of the meal is to get everything out of the house and to the patio!  We have no pass through-so I'm adding a lot to my daily power walk here, which is good-we can all use more exercise!

Friday-let's talk about how to serve these cool dishes and cut down on the clean up time afterwards.

Hi all, with my arm out of commission-dinner still had to get put on the table, laundry done and lunches made-not easy, but I sort of got a reprieve.

My husband wound up being sent to one of the company's new stores to train the staff, so after posting my 2 columns-I took my bathing suit and went with him.  I think having the latest store in a beachside community was a good move.

Back to Thursday though-took out pork chops and had my daughter-in-law pour some soy sauce, Montreal steak seasoning and evoo into the bags and let it defrost and marinate at the same time.  Those wound up getting the grill treatment.  Took out some low-carb tortillas.

I think you see where I went with this meal:  besides grilling the pork, peppers, mushrooms and onions also got the treatment.  It was all served fajita-style with salsa, spinach, shredded cheese and sour cream.  

Did anyone miss the usual meals with many different marinades, salads and desserts?  No, not one single bit.
If someone wanted something sweet to eat-I had grapes, watermelon and some mighty beautiful strawberries in the fridge.  On movie night-instead of the air-popper, we used some microwave popcorn bags.  Nothing wrong with using the Keurig instead of the Cuisineart for coffee either.

What I'm showing you here this week is this-even with an injury or when extreme pain, there's still a way to put a meal on the table, with great variety and a whole lot of flavor.

So far, outside of a twitch in my eye and a headache, we seem to be holding up.  My living room is still filled with more stuff than you would think would fit into a 5×8 bathroom, but things are getting accomplished.  

Big confession:  I am so out of it with the messy, dusty house, the RA flares and the new assignments from a 3rd local newspaper that I’m getting confused about what I’m writing about at times.  

Have patience with me, please.  This column was actually supposed to be last Friday’s when I was leaving town for the weekend.  Got invited to an very impromptu business trip with my hubby and out the door me and my brain went!
Plus I was on deadline for a story.  

Our meals-lots of those foil packets.  I also love that we found that safety pan for grilling fish and smaller veggies.  Haven't made any cookies or cakes and brownies.  Just too darn hot and humid.  Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to make and freeze several zucchini, pumpkin and various banana breads.  That covers brown bag desserts and with the help of a toaster some tasty breakfasts.

If someone wants something sweet later on, I'm keeping lots of berries and stone fruits on hand.  Actually-I'm making sure that the peaches and nectarines are freestones.  That way I have been able to give them a schmear of pure maple syrup and some grill marks and plop some sorbet or non-fat ice cream on the top for some very tasty and healthy desserts!

Back to the main meals-getting some use out of the "slider" stuff we bought.  I used it twice.  We had some beef sliders one night when the grandkids were over and the other I used turkey.  

I made the beef with just some garlic salt and minced onion.  For the turkey I used some of the hickory smoked pepper and worstershire sauce.  I kept both moist by adding about ? C of very crushed ice to the mix.  Try it-this works very well when using very lean meats.

I made fish packets out of salmon, catfish or tilapia.  I simply added a teaspoon of olive oil, a couple of slices of fresh lemon and some minced garlic to them and put them on for about 10 minutes.  

I'm not really one for doing veggies in packets-unless they are the heartier ones like carrots, potatoes and onions.  The rest-I give them a quick spritz of olive oil and salt and pepper and grill-this works great with asparagus, green beans and pre-steamed artichokes.  Even cauliflower does well with this method.  

Pork chops and whole cut-up chickens are very versatile!  Make them plain and serve with tortillas and salsa.  

 Marinate in just about anything you like and serve as is.  Find an asada mix you love, add some colorful sweet peppers and serve over rice, barley or polenta.

As usual, even if I've used the same main items, I'm certainly not serving them the same.  

Tomorrow-I'm breaking down and serving hubby's favorite:

Traditional ribeyes (marinated in Montreal steak seasoning, soy sauce and evoo)

Baked potatoes

Spinach salad with mushrooms, cranberries, grape tomatoes and feta with balsamic vinaigrette.

Next week?  Who knows-this is an adventure and I love adventures.

I had to take it easy last week.  

So this week's topic is how to cook when you have only 1 hand and not a whole heck of a lot of help.

It all started when Sunday-we had a lot of errands, which entailed a lot of shopping.  Our freezer was bare, so hubby picked out the usual proteins for the shelves at Costco.

This meant that I had to weigh, cut and package quite a bit of stuff and get the laundry done.  Well, 6 loads and 2 hours of packaging later (I'll through the 2 sink full of pots, pans and dirty BBQ grill into this), my left arm started throbbing.  Yep, from the rotator cuff, down to my finger tips.

Monday I had a lot of writing to do.  By 11 a.m.-I was typing with one hand and thinking "what can I make for dinner that won't take 2 hands to do?"
The answer:  dinner sausages, asparagus and mushrooms and baked potatoes.  All on the grill.

I made our son take the helm.  Everyone loved it.  Served it with some traditional toppings and salsa.

Tuesday's meal was just as easy.  Again, the grill became my friend (besides, it was 96 at 6 p.m., so we ate outside as well).  This time, it was salmon patties, asparagus and corn.  I had some buns, so my husband and son made a "burger" with those and added spinach and roasted peppers from the fridge.

Wednesday my arm was still not exactly enjoying itself, so I decided on serving a spinach salad.  The one that I've given the recipe for here a couple of times and that was published in Simple and Delicious magazine and a couple of their cookbooks.  I had my son stop at the market and buy a rotisserie chicken and then listened to him moan and groan about cutting it up to put on the top.  While he was there I had him add a loaf of garlic bread to the basket.

By Thursday, I was getting slightly upset that I wasn't able to do much-but come back on Friday and I'll let you know how and what I did to keep resting that "flare" in my arm and still keep everyone's belly full.

Mid-summer already.  Our household just started the beginning of an entire season of major bathroom remodeling.  Woohoo.  This was both expected and dreaded.  We knew it was coming.  Sink and leaking problems in one bath, tub leakage and several other problems in the master.  

Honestly, I'm excited because I love everything we picked out (especially the long awaited new whirlpool tub), but I know this will be a trying time.  I've got tons of articles to write, animals to watch over (so no one escapes or goes insane) and dust on every particle of free space.  

How will I do the cooking?  What will be easiest to accomplish?  Will the animals be fine and yours truly be the one to become a screaming lunatic?????

When you all read this, it will be the beginning of week 2.  Thankfully, we are in the middle of a heat wave-which is what we planned, no sense doing this type of work if you know that rain might be "afoot".

What works best for us is the use of the grill.  I know, I told you way back in one of my beginning columns that my feelings are "if God had meant me to use the broiler in my range, grills would have never been invented"-you'll be hearing that a lot in the next few months.

So how do you keep things interesting when trying to stay cool physically and mentally during time of duress?

Come back on Friday and I'll give you some of the dishes I've been using for the first couple of weeks!