My egret friend. Often the egrets come by to visit as I'm enjoying the deck. Last night this friendly fellow hung out with Dad and I as we grilled and ate. Knowing that the days of summer are drawing to a close, and the evenings will be getting darker and colder we decided to capture some more relaxation on the deck.

I set things up pretty casually.

And threw everything on the grill at once.

And our vegetarian meal turned out pretty, and pretty tasty indeed. And I lingered on the deck for hours in the beautiful California evening, pulling out my Mac laptop and virtually chatting with my new professor about the possibilities of becoming involved in some exciting research involving brainwave measurement as part of my coursework!

Banning the carbs. I had a friend over that is on one of those diets were fat is ok, but no carbs other than fruits. So above is the dinner I made, plus the grilled items, wild coho salmon, asparagus and eggplant. The green salad pictured is of mache and herbs, and the Broccoli & Boconccini is in the post below with recipe.

I used a new product to make the wild coho salmon, a Finnish Smoker Bag. We were all delighted with the flavorful results! This works indoors in an oven, which is great if the weather isn't right, or you don't have access to a grill.

It's very easy, you just place the salmon, skin side down in the bag, season, and put it on the grill.

There is a cooking guide on the back, so it makes it easy to determine how long it takes when you can't see the fish.

Open it up and plate it. It was really good, so good that I looked for another bag to have on hand yesterday! I also did another grilling dinner yesterday, I didn't take photos, but can highly recommend Trader Joe's Marinated Ahi Tuna steaks, and Colossal Butterflied Shrimp. These grill up easily and have great flavor. I also served a fruit salad of organic nectarines, strawberries and raspberries, a marinated bean salad. And I marinated or seasoned and grilled lots of great veggies, including thinly sliced zucchini (lengthwise), mini-bell peppers in yellow, orange and red, fresh shitake mushrooms, and tender asparagus. Grilling seemed to intensify the flavors of the vegetables and I found it hard to keep up with the demand from the table!