Memorial Day Cookout

Evelyn and Kristin made quite a feast for us today! (Even if it was a bit of a longer walk from our garage kitchen to the patio area) So much good food .....

Getting the barbecue ready for grilling...




While we waited we had a few appetizers. For starters we had a spinach salad with strawberries and mandarin oranges. This was tossed with a home-made red currant vinaigrette. (To make the vinaigrette - take 1/4 cup of red currant jam and heat it with 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar to make a red syrup.)

Here's James enjoying the potato salad



Once the grill, was hot we got down to the business of grilling -
First we toasted Italian bread to spread with an eggplant dip (made of roasted eggplant, roasted green peppers, and olive oil) then sprinkled with a bit of feta cheese




After that the many veggies- asparagus; mushrooms; wooden skewers of potatoes, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, and shallots



And the bbq ribs.... Kristin had cooked the ribs (baby back, western style, and spareribs) in the oven, slathered in barbecue sauce, for 9 hours at 190 degrees. They were then grilled for 10-20 minutes. Incredibly tender. The barbecue sauce was a homemade top- secret recipe which included jalopeno peppers. MMMmmmmm.



And for dessert... lemonade cake and grilled pineapple.



The recipe for the lemonade cake can be found at abcnews.go.com/GMA/Recipes/Story?id=4869594&page=2
(scroll down and look for the pink lemonade layer cake)