our favourite summer dinner

a few weeks ago, a friend of mine (and a blog reader)

was telling me how much she loved reading my blog

she also told me she wanted me to post about

what i make for dinner

i started laughing out loud

because i am far from a giada de laurentis

i said to her, what i make is usually pretty easy, not gourmet at all and quick!

(quick is the key in my kitchen, especially on weeknights)

to which she replied, well that's all everyone is looking for

so i thought why not?!

now, please keep this in mind

i am by no means a gourmet chef

i pretty much started cooking out of necessity

when i got married 7 years ago, i had no clue how to cook

i moved out of my parents house straight 

into a home of my own with my husband

except for a year in london, england and another year in toronto, ontario

i lived at home until i got married, a home where my mom did all the cooking

so most of my cooking skills are amateur

but what i do prepare for my family is simple, relatively healthy and delicious 

(at least that's what they tell me )

so, i'm going to share with you our favorite summer dinner

no other beverage says summer to me than an iced melon drink 

(melon to my filipino readers)

it's a traditional filipino iced drink made from cantaloupe

it's super easy to make and quite refreshing!

 ingredients:

• 1 medium size cantaloupe
• 4 cups of water
• sugar (to taste)
• lots of ice cubes

you will also need:

• melon scraper (a scraper designed for scraping melon or coconut) if you don't have a melon scraper, a fork will work as well
• pitcher

how to make iced melon drink : 

• cut the melon in half, remove the seeds.
• shred the cantaloupe meat using the melon scraper over your pitcher
• add the water and sugar to the melon shreds
• stir and add ice
• pour into glasses and serve cold.

 **the amount of sugar depends on how sweet you like your melon drink, just keep adding

more sugar if you want it on the sweeter side**

 our side dishes was a berry salad made from the berries that we recently picked

and fresh local corn purchased from a farm

the main dish was ribs

i know you are thinking ribs?

we are big grillers in this house (especially during the summer)

and my husband loves ribs, but we haven't made them in our house yet

so we thought we would give it a try

and see if the girls would like ribs too

season the ribs with seasoning salt

bake the ribs for 2 hours in the oven at 350 

throw the ribs on the grill 

slather with your favorite barbeque sauce

grill for 10-15 mins on each side

and if you are wondering if the girls liked them or not...

as you can see from the photos above

it's quickly become our favourite summer dinner