summer suppers

last week we had several afternoon storms go through. one of them was pretty big and black and windy, but the nice part was when the clouds moved off and the sun came out it was 20 or so degrees cooler.

so that was the evening i was brave enough to turn on my oven, and the three things i made that evening all took their turn.

the first of them was the 'beer bread in a bottle' that coworker curt gave me at my housewarming. as we had plenty of bud light leftover from that same party - turns out coors light was the preferred by just about everyone - i used a can of that.

you simply dump the cry mix out of the bottle, pour in a can of beer, mix well, put in a greased bread pan and pop in the oven. and boy, was it ever good! very light and soft and moist, great texture, and it didn't last long around the house. and no yeast to mess with! i'm a believer in this product now.

in my fridge i also had a package of ground beef languishing, in need of a recipe to use it up. something besides hamburgers. i went to an old stand-by from a beef checkoff recipe booklet, 'greek meatball subs with cucumber-yogurt sauce.' i've made the whole thing before, and they are really good with the sauce, but i lacked the cucumbers and tomatoes for the sauce, so i just made the meatballs. they have yogurt mixed in with the ground beef, and greek seasoning, and they're really quite good. not at all dry like meatballs can get.

and then i had an assortment of vegetables that also needed to be used, so i threw a summer squash, zucchini, onion, tomatoes and red peppers in a baking dish, drizzling with olive oil and generously sprinkling with salt. actually, i didn't throw them all in there at once. i let the peppers and onions roast first, then added the squash, and the tomatoes at the end, just long enough to warm them. then i dressed the whole thing with red wine vinegar and i forget what seasonings. :-)

the bread baked up wonderfully.

i was a little skeptical as to how lumpy it got.

the meatballs smelled wonderful. to make things easier on myself, i should line the baking sheet with foil. but, baking the meatballs on the rack keeps them up out of the grease, but my ground beef from the grazing association is pretty lean.

yum, vegetables! they were delish, esp with the little bit of leftover grated parmesan cheese i also had sitting in the fridge.

so i used up a lot of leftovers from my fridge that evening, and ended up with a tasty meal and leftovers for the next week's lunches to boot.

and i can't forget to give credit to the assistant chefs! foxy loves to slouch in this corner of the kitchen. she def has a 'lazy dog sit.'

and my lu. curly tail and all.