Another Birthday Dinner in Our Garden

Vanessa's birthday (our daughter) was this week. We celebrated by dining "en plein air" again.
The weather co-operated fully, not too hot now. We're back into the 90's which feels much better.

We started off with an Italian raspberry cocktail - (combine 1/8 cup Campari, 3 tbsp simple raspberry syrup and 1 tbsp each lemon and orange juices. Top with 1/3 cup club soda and stir. Pour over ice. The syrup: in saucepan, stir together 3/4 cup each sugar and water, add 1 1/2 cups raspberries, bring to gentle simmer for 5 minutes, cool and strain.)

Meat course; Red-Hot Pork Loin.

It's not really spicy hot, but my family says it's delicious. And deceptively easy to make. I've been using Stubbs Spicy BBQ sauce; 3 jars does the trick, and just 2 lbs of bacon. I also use pork tenderloins and cut them into about 1 inch slices, not cubes. Seems to work well.

This is the recipe for our favorite corn and bean salad. I 6x it for last night, so we have some leftovers.

I tried a new salad this time because it sounded refreshing. It was a big hit.
Pineapple and cilantro pair well. (We didn't have much leftovers of this.)

And of course, dessert. We all loved this. Totally worth the effort. Rhubarb and blueberries, yum.

Since it was Vanessa's birthday and since she loves chocolate I had to include some.
This is my version of Turtle Torte. If you love chocolate, this is a good one.

And currently one of my favorite views in the garden.
We had to move the banana off the back porch, it was overgrowing its space.
I think it looks great on the deck.

My advice; put your summer to work for you - get out and enjoy it!