A great veggie and fruit treat for summer

With Southwest Desert temperatures hitting high marks on the mercury in these dog days of summer, the very thought of heating up the kitchen to prepare a meal gives me a good excuse to eat yet another bologna fold-over sandwich for supper.

But a nagging voice keeps invading my thoughts, reminding me of the virtues of eating lots of vegetables and fruits.  Recently, my husband Wayne, master griller, offered to cook supper outside. Yes!

To counterbalance whatever carnivore delicacy I knew he would be grilling, I emptied the vegetable bin onto the kitchen counter.  Red onions, zucchini, jalapeño peppers, tomatoes, and red, yellow, and orange bell peppers.  After a little trimming and chopping, these vegetables went into a special grilling pan, an inexpensive purchase we made several years ago.

While digging around in the refrigerator for vegetables, I came across a bag of peaches we had been ignoring because of their bland taste.  I was about to throw the peaches in the trash when some vague memory of hearing about the joys of grilling fruit came to me.  I peeled and cut up the peaches and added them on top of the vegetable mix.

Here is Wayne liberally seasoning the mixture with olive oil spray and Jerry Baird's All-Purpose Seasoning.

The vegetable/fruit dish was ready for the grill!

Wayne cooked the mixture over a mesquite wood fire, spraying it several more times with olive oil. When the vegetable were crusty, he declared the dish done.  It looks like he sneaked a piece of his favorite sausage in on the side.

We had grilled vegetables many times in the past, eating them virtuously because they were a healthy choice. But the peaches were the unexpected added touch to give this dish a truly gourmet quality.

There were no leftovers.

Decorating the Garden WITHOUT Plants

Gardening in the Desert Southwest certainly has its challenges!  Trying to grow flora in El Paso, Texas, my hometown, is a constant battle with blazing temperatures in the summer months, freezing temperatures in the winter, gale force winds in the spring, and autumn, well, I can't complain about autumn weather.  But did I mention our meager average 9" of rainfall per year?

Visitors to our home from other regions of the state and abroad are often visibly shocked when we take them on a tour of the property. 

"Your yard looks so empty!"  observed a friend visiting from London. ("We like big, empty spaces in the Desert Southwest," I replied defensively.)

"The yards in El Paso look unfinished," observed a family member from the central part of Texas.

("That's called xeriscaping.  We believe in water conservation,"  I explained.)

 "Don't you feed your plants? They look awfully small," remarked another gardener from the northern part of Texas. (Of course I do, I thought to myself.  Why bother to explain that the same plants that grow to enormous sizes in other environments have to fight to even exist here?)

So I turned to objects for help in enhancing the garden.

This fountain was purchased in our neighboring border city of Ciudad Juárez and installed in the courtyard.  The fountain is showing its age with discolorations and crumbling sides, but it has lasted, providing a soothing, bubbling sound, for over twenty-five years. 

Several seating areas give the illusion of a leisurely life style.

These chairs and small table are in the pool area.  You may notice that we keep the cushions on the back of the chairs instead of the seats because the outside cats love to curl up here, leaving mounds of cat hair. So much for human relaxation!

On the wall behind the seating area are metal sculptures that my husband Wayne made in his workshop.  To the left are male and female figures holding hands, looking like they are off to do something fun. Next is a figure Wayne named "La Azteca"  (the Aztec).  He even dressed her up in a pair of turquoise earrings.  The figure to the right is Kokopelli, the Native American fertility god, playing his usual flute.  Hidden by foliage in the summer time is another Kokopelli figure, this one playing an unexpected didgeridoo, an Australian musical instrument.

Two retro metal chairs with a small round table placed under a shady pecan tree next to an adobe horno (outdoor oven) provide another seating area.

Mother Earth, adorned with garden symbols such as corn, flowers, and a rake, keeps watch over our new Tucson Yard.  Wayne constructed her of rebar, a metal building material.

A roadrunner, fashioned by Wayne from a plow disc, a pipe and scrap metal, also adorns the Tucson Yard.

This roadrunner is made out of railroad spikes.

Sometimes though, garden decoration can be accomplished by simply re-purposing an item. This old deep fat cooker, made by a life-long friend of Wayne's in Del Rio, Texas, now is the perfect spot for an airplane plant to flourish in the summer in the shade of a pecan tree.

I'm not suggesting I'm giving up trying to coax a luxurious garden from the Desert Southwest, but meanwhile, these garden objects will feed my soul with good memories on early morning walks through the garden.