Darling, I just love what you’ve done with the patio.

After you’ve blown your sav­ings build­ing an out­door liv­ing room that can only be used in the sum­mer, you’ll def­i­nitely want to hang out in it as much as pos­si­ble. That means bar­be­cues, deck par­ties and keg­gers are in store.

This kind of enter­tain­ing requires the least amount of skill or labour — it’s sum­mer­time fun food! This is the kind of spread you make in between water polo matches and games of euchre. We’re talk­ing about easy to pre­pare potato salad, pasta salad, coleslaw, burg­ers, sausages, corn on the cob.….and the eas­i­est of all — shish kebabs.

photo cour­tesy of Chris Arkwright

All you need is a stick, some veg­gies and some sea­son­ing and you’re pretty much done. They are so easy to assem­ble you can get the kids to do it while you mix up some more straw­berry daquiris. As long as every­thing is pre­pared in advance the kids can just go to it and have them ready for the grill in no time.

Soak your skew­ers in water while you’re prep­ping, this will give them time to hydrate so they don’t hit the heat and burst into flames. Cut red onion, red and yel­low pep­per, zuc­chini, sum­mer squash, pat­ty­pans and por­to­bello mush­room into even sized pieces so that every­thing cooks at the same time. Put all your cut veg­eta­bles in a bowl with some minced gar­lic, olive oil, salt, pep­per, chili flakes and a lit­tle red wine vine­gar or lemon juice. Remember those pot­ted herbs around the canasta table? They aren’t just for decor, snip some rose­mary or thyme and throw that into the mix. Add cherry toma­toes, toss every­thing and let mari­nade while you do your nails by the pool.

You can also add beef, chicken, wild boar, bison, trout or tofu to these skew­ers. If you want to get really fancy check out Chris’ Killer Kebabs recipe.

Serve these with some of the afore­men­tioned sal­ads. Add a few cold beers and a jello shooter or two and you’ve got din­ner. Stack the Melmac in the out­door dish­washer, clev­erly located beside the out­door wet bar just to the left of the out­door home the­atre. Light a few sparklers and cel­e­brate another easy, breezy sum­mer party.

Anyone for canasta?