Sweet Summertime

*******Sorry about the formatting....I promise I put spaces between the paragraphs....but they won't appear right now************
These past few days have been sort of boring. I've spent a lot of my time here (yes, that is the living room floor):

Working on this:

But seriously...how cute is that binder? Did your English teacher's lesson plans come in a sweet green binder? I have a whopping six days fully planned (we start school on a Friday) and the next nine almost fully planned. Clearly, this is going to be my first year teaching. Real teachers probably haven't started looking at stuff yet--they are still recovering from last year!

Anyway, in an effort to keep things a little interesting around here, I think I'd share some of my favorite recipes for summer cooking. First, I have to say that the word cooking is used lightly here. I prefer not to turn the oven on when it's hot outside. I had it on for something a few weeks ago, and it raised the temperature of the whole house by two degrees. Or at least that's what the thermostat said. I would be perfectly content eating frosting from the jar and some fruit or salad all summer long. That other person that lives here tends to disagree. So we compromise.

Our meal plan for the week looks something like this:

Sunday: Grilled chicken (marinaded in a Lawry's 30 min. marinade or Italian salad dressing)

Vegetable of some sort (Broccoli or green beans)

Monday: Fish (Grilled in foil, with lemon, salt, pepper)

Instant brown rice

Tuesday:Pork chops with pizzaiola sauce (grilled pork chops, sauce is onion and garlic sauteed in olive oil, a pinch of red pepper flakes, can of diced tomatoes added and cooked together)

Wednesday: Something easy....last night it was a frittata with turkey bacon, green onion, and eggs

Thursday: Chicken stir fry--chicken cooked in Italian salad dressing, tossed with frozen stir fry vegetables and soy sauce, on top of brown rice

Friday: Hamburgers made with Williams-Sonoma hamburger seasoning on the grill, some sort of grilled vegetable (I like zucchini the best)

Saturday: Whatever I can throw together with what's left in the kitchen

Did I mention that Andy does the grilling? And that I hate cleaning up the kitchen? On nights when we don't use the grill, sometimes we use the crockpot too. Anything to avoid heating up the kitchen.

And any night of the week, we like to end with an iced vanilla coffee.

I usually just use leftover cold coffee from the morning...or if there's none, I just make a new pot and cool it. Then I pour the coffee into a glass with ice cubes. I fill the glass about halfway with coffee. Then I pour a few glugs of vanilla syrup in. I have been using this:

Which I picked up at World Market the last time I was at my parents house. But it's almost gone and I don't really like the brands they sell in town....so I'm going to make my own based on a recipe I found the other day (make a simple syrup: boil one cup water, one cup sugar, add 2 t. vanilla extract). Then I fill the cup the rest of the way up with milk, stir and enjoy.