Summer Barbecue Courtesy of Suzanna

Suzanna decided it was time for her to prepare another meal for our family (remember last time?), so she was in charge of supper last night. Well, actually she enlisted my help, so we worked side-by-side on this meal:

We knew that we'd be serving leftover herbed potato/pea/bacon salad from the previous night's supper. What would go well with that?

Grilled hamburgers! After a recent delivery, there is plenty of hamburger in our deep freeze, so it was no problem to thaw a package yesterday morning to be ready for last night. Suzanna grated some Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese to add to the hamburger meat, and I chopped some yellow onion and fresh parsley to mix in. Suzanna added some Smoky Bacon Grill Sauce, and I got my hands dirty mixing the hamburger and forming patties. Suzanna buttered the buns and sprinkled garlic salt on them. I fired up the grill and made the hamburgers, toasting the buns on the grill at the last minute. I topped each burger with some grated Mexican cheese, a couple slices of peperoncini, and some extra sauce before I put each hamburger together.

While I was tending to the grill, Suzanna was tending to the beverages. She wanted to serve malted milkshakes; however, thinking that we had no vanilla ice cream (but we did), she decided on what she called "melted milkshakes": milk with chocolate syrup and malt powder stirred in! She also got the kitchen shears and came out to the flower bed beside the grill and asked my permission to clip a few fresh flowers to put in a vase for a centerpiece on the table on the veranda.

For dessert, we thawed a Chocolate Lover's Cake that we had gotten with a shipment from Omaha Steaks awhile back. We set it out with the flowers to further beautify the table while we ate.

When the hamburgers and potato salad had been gobbled up, we served the chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream from Schwan's. It was a pretty delicious meal, I must say. Brava, Suzanna!