June on the Patio

Summer has arrived with a gusto this past month (and especially in the past week), so we recently took advantage of the hot weather to eat out on our patio (which we don't seem to do nearly enough).

For dinner, we defrosted some steaks that Ed had bought in bulk a while ago, and grilled them on the stove (so delicious - we rarely have steak at home, and I always so appreciate when we do - I can cook it exactly how I like it - medium rare). 

With it, Ed roasted some potatoes and onions and I cooked up some green beans fresh from the farmer's market (incidently, spending my first Saturday of my "official summer" at the farmer's market was lovely). 

The green beans were delicious, if I do say so myself. I usually have a little bit of trouble cooking these perfectly, but this time I made the good decision to steam them, but pull them off the heat before they were quite finished. Then, I put a "healthy" amount of olive oil in a pan with 5 or so cloves of garlic - I'm very thankful neither Ed nor I have issues with the other eating garlic or onions; they are far too delicious to abstain from - and infused the oil for about a minute or so with the garlicy goodness before adding the beans. I cooked the beans another 2 or 3 minutes and they were perfect - tender but still crisp, with delicious bits of garlic in each bite. 

It was late enough in the evening that we didn't need an umbrella - the patio was already in the shade, and it was a cool 80 or so degrees.

 If this weather keeps up, I have a feeling that we'll be eating a lot of later evening dinners our here. 

After dinner, we stayed outside for another 20 or so minutes, reading, and just soaking in the summer evening. 

(As a side note, that still fits in this post since it's about our backyard, Ed bought new gold fish for our pond! Yes we have a pond - two in fact, and sometimes three when Ed feels like it - and every so often Ed stocks it with very cute goldfish. We now have ten happy little fish and a beautiful flowering water plant. It's a lovely addition to our outside).