Porch Night

Porch night is when all of us roommates of 4102 Colorado Ave. grill out back, drink good wine, relax and enjoy each other’s company. We laugh, tell stories, catch up on each other’s lives, play music, speak in strange languages, funny voices and just have a good time.

Here are some vegetables I washed for grilling later on – mushrooms, tomatoes and asparagus. Asparagus is my favorite, it’s so easy to just wash, angle the stems and grill with a little extra virgin olive oil, salt and fresh ground pepper.

I love my red Calypso colander. My mom bought it for me at Whole Foods before I moved to Nashville last summer. It has served me well during my 5 nights/week pasta dinners. I love pasta so much and can never get enough.

Next, I marinated scallops in a little olive oil with a chill and lime rub, parsley, fresh ground pepper and plenty of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

With plenty of extra lemon slices for grilling too, which add a brilliant flavor

It’s grillin’ time. With a little wine in hand (and I mean a little, can’t be tipsy before we even sit down), I head out back and pop everything on the grill. At this point the vegetables get tossed with the olive oil. The flame on the grill will ignite a little more at this point because of the oil, but it will go down. Not to worry. Make sure to make a little basket with some foil for the fish, so the oil doesn’t drip into your grill. For the vegetables I always grill mine in the basket shown from Williams Sonoma. I will post a link to it in a later post.

The grilling basket is awesome, and I use it for a variety of things. I steamed those red bliss potatoes prior to tossing them on the grill. That way they are cooked through before placing them on the grill, so they don’t take to long, but they still taste like they were grilled.

 I toss the potatoes with a dap of butter, and flavor with coarse salt, freshly ground pepper and rosemary.

At this point my rosemary focaccia has just come out of the oven and it is time to eat. This bread recipe is under my baking category. It is very easy to make and delicious right out of the oven with bowls of extra virgin olive oil and freshly ground pepper for dipping.

The lighting is a little off on these pictures – Tala and CeeCee

Mariu and Kathleen ready to eat.

Sweet Tala

Olive oil for the focaccia

Therese made fresh mango mojitos – they were amazing and I will post the recipe under a summer drinks post soon.

Fruit tarts for dessert (as if our stomachs could hold any more). photo credit: Therese

 Recipe to follow under the baking Category.

Fruit tarts are one of my favorite desserts to make – I love them because I love creativity and I often feel like I’m painting a picture when I make them. There are so many different parts that go into them, like mixing colors to create a picture.

The girls gave me this bow from Anthropologie that night- because they know I love the store (but who are we kidding, I can’t afford so much as a single earning from that place) but mostly because they are sweet and thoughtful like that.