Tonight’s dinner started with my weekly trek to Gentile’s this morning.  Sunshine, blue skies, minimal traffic… It was the perfect drive down.  I had the wiondows open, the radio blaring.  What’s that expression… “Dance like no one is looking”?  Well… that was me singing in the car.  It was rather fun.  Wendy Wadsworth and I belting out “I’m Guilty” and me, Dolly Parton and Vince Gill doing a great rendition of “I Will Always Love You”.  (Eat your heart out, Whitney!)  Who knew 8 miles could be so much fun?!?

My timing was perfect, too!  The store wasn’t crowded and I had time to actually browse around a bit.  The very first thing I saw was my oblong watermelon – with seeds!  I’m psyched!  I have to figure out how to carve it into a Hawai’ian outrigger or something for Saturday!  I picked up a lot of fruit that should be perfect on Saturday to chop and fill it up.

One thing I picked up for today was a bunch of long hot peppers for Victor to fry.  I like having them in the ‘fridge to add to things.  And these guys have been pretty hot.

Victor said he would actually grill them this time around, so I got the fire going and cooked off a couple of chicken breasts for salads.  Victor was still working, so i charred them nicely, placed ’em in a bag to sweat, and then peeled and seeded them.  They smelled fantastic and tasted fantastic. At that point, all I really wanted was a chicken sandwich with peppers, but I also wanted a salad.  The salad won – but with a twist.

I made a quick chicken salad with the cubed grilled chicken, a couple of the peppers, diced, a tablespoon of mayonnaise, juice of a lime, salt and pepper.  Tart, creamy, spicy.  Perfect.

I also had an avocado that needed eating tonight.  It was r-i-p-e.  It was actually a little too ripe to just slice into the salad, and as I stood at the island, I saw those deep red, vine-ripened tomatoes and thought “Stuffed Tomatoes”!  I made a quick guacamole with the avocado and a couple of tablespoons of picante sauce, hollowed out the tomatoes and filled.

Foe the dressing, I added 2 tbsp of mayonnaise to the bowl I had made the guacamole in (there was a tiny-tad left in there), juice of a lime, a tablespoon of picante sauce, and a bit of S&P.  Instant Mexican Thousand Island!

Diced green onions, grapes, and apricots finished the plate.

And tonight’s dessert will be ice cream.