outdoor eatin's

The weather is perfect right now. Mosquitos haven't emerged, humidity hasn't hit and it's an ideal 75-80 degrees until sunset or so. That coupled with the fact that I've had a fire burning in my back yard for the last three days, trying to get rid of as much of three large pine trees we fell earlier this year as I possibly can without my husband's help (He's traveling again.) makes for some great wienie roasting times.

Unfortunately we have no roasting sticks. I know we have four somewhere but I don't know where they went. And, yes, we have a bunch of branches but I know you don't want to use just any wood you find, right? I was reduced to using one of those flat fish-grilling baskets. It worked decently enough for the hot dogs.

We first heated up the hot dogs (Hebrew National, of course. Yum!) and then we wrapped bread dough around them and put them back into the grill basket. (Yes, my pizza dough to the rescue again.) It made for some interesting-shaped bread, but in the taste department: top scores.

I also fixed a macaroni salad (with olives, garbanzos, celery and sharp white cheddar cheese) as a side. And cake balls for dessert. What are cake balls? Take a frosted cake, smash it into a brown goo and then shape the goo into small truffle-sized balls. After a half hour or so in the freezer, dip the afore-mentioned balls into melted chocolate. Eat the goodness. Smile.