Category — Holiday

If you can find Easter egg radishes and colorful heirloom cherry tomatoes at your grocery store or farmer’s market, this perfect colorful summer salad!

If not, I’m sorry for you but it will still taste fantastic without the “fancy” vegetables.

Isn’t it pretty?

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These mouth-watering BBQ chicken thighs were inspired by a recipe from the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond.

When it comes to making bbq chicken quarters or just anything bbq related, there are many ways to make a recipe your own. For me, all I did was switch out peach preserves that she used to kick up some purchased BBQ sauce with red pepper jelly to really spice it up. The result – fantabulous!

These are what I was baking while the haboob rolled into and over Scottsdale and did a number on my 4th of July decorations the night before the party.

I neglected to let you know how all that turned out … it was fine. I spent the latter part of the night trying to track down all the blow-up stars that had been hanging from the front pillars. They were blown all around our cul-de-sac. I found about 2/3 of them that, the dark, and the rest the next morning. I was able to hang up and repair all the damage from the storm. So all’s well that ends well!

Now on to my bbq chicken.

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For the 4th of July Potluck BBQ-Pool Party, I asked guests to bring a salad, a side, or a dessert. George, who works with Dave, said he’d bring a side. When he told his wife, Julie, it turns out there was some discussion about what constitutes a side dish. Julie wanted to bring a pasta salad, or maybe a grilled vegetable salad or some other sort of dish with the word “salad” in it. All of which George put the kibosh on because they were “salads” and he signed up for a “side.”

Of course, anything they brought would have been just fine and greatly appreciated. They agreed this chilled green bean side dish would qualify as a side and all was right with the world.

Indeed it was, and it was delicious! Julie found the recipe on Rachael Ray’s website.

Here Dave is giving George a little grieve about giving Julie grieve about what is a salad and what is a side!

This is, Coney, he is the resident lifeguard at our pool. He may not have eyes to watch over swimmers, but his buff body keeps people in line!

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Peggy, Raechel, Sheila, and I met at The Simple Farm last Thursday for their last market of the summer. No worries, they’ll reopen in October when the cooler weather returns.

You might remember Raechel from my craft classes. Raechel was pregnant when she came to her first craft. Then in the next class, she brought her beautiful newborn baby girl, Brooklyn.

We were so happy to see Raechel and 7-month-old Brooklyn at the market. How adorable is this little cherub!?!

Sheila bought a few cartons of fresh goat’s milk and a jar of The Simple Farm’s Goat’s Milk Caramel Sauce.

Best of all, she shared it with us by making Goat’s Milk Ice Cream and letting us drizzle the amazing caramel sauce all over it!

Oh my, was it good! Thank you, Sheila, for sharing your farm bounty with all of us!!!

Beautiful Sheila drizzling away.

Steve, is very excited to be drizzling Goat’s Milk Caramel Sauce into his bowl of homemade ice cream!

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Besides the deliciousness of this old-fashioned potato salad recipe, I also love that when Sheila sent me the recipe she named specific brands of mayonnaise, pickle relish and seasoning salt.

All three of the brands are true Red, White & Blue Americana, all created in the early 1900’s!

Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise

In 1905, Richard Hellmann from Vetschau, Germany, opened a delicatessen on Columbus Avenue in New York City, where he used his wife’s recipe to sell the first ready-made mayonnaise. It became so popular that he began selling it in bulk to other stores. In 1912 he built a factory for producing Mrs. Hellmann’s mayonnaise. It was mass-marketed and called Hellmann’s Blue Ribbon Mayonnaise. It was so successful, that Hellmann closed his delicatessen in 1917 to devote full-time to his mayonnaise business.

Lawry’s Seasoned Salt

The seasoning was originally created by Lawrence Frank, the original owner of the Tam O’Shanter and Lawry’s The Prime Rib Restaurant, where the seasoning was used and sold to patrons of Lawry’s. In 1938, Lawry’s began marketing its seasoned salt in retail stores.

Vlasic Dill Pickle Relish

Frank Vlasic immigrated from Poland to Detroit in 1912 and started a small creamery with savings from his factory job. His son Joseph acquired a milk route in 1922, which eventually grew into the state’s largest dairy distributor. In 1937, Vlasic was approached to distribute a home-style pickle, later marketing their fresh-packed pickle in glass jars. A star was born!

The mention of a “milk route” reminds me to show you one of my 4th of July “Americana” centerpieces.  Made with three Vintage Milk Dairy Porch Delivery Boxes.

In case you’re too young to know what these are, they are boxes that were left on people’s porches and a milkman delivered milk and other dairy products right to the door. Here is a little history from the Historic New England exhibit – From Dairy to Doorstep.

After World War II, change came to the milkman. The milkman was a familiar character in the neighborhoods of small towns and cities alike, and dairy products now held an unquestioned place in the American diet. Yet, refrigerators, supermarkets, suburban sprawl, and automobiles threatened home delivery. Consumers chose to live in different places and get milk in different ways. In fact, by the end of the 1950s, home delivery fell into a decline and never recovered. By the early 1950s, reliable power refrigeration replaced ice boxes and revised the homemaker’s job of buying and cooking for the household. Perishable foods like milk could now be bought in greater quantity and kept longer without spoiling, more meals could be made from leftovers, and frozen foods could replace fresh. The milkman did not have to arrive every day in order for the family to have unsoured milk.

I am just barely old enough to remember the milkman. These boxes (purchased on eBay) make me really happy!

Speaking of happy – check out this lovely spread of food. The potato salad is in that huge yellow stoneware bowl in the upper left corner. YUM!

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For the 4th of July party main course(s), I made beer-boiled and grilled brats, oven-roasted BBQ chicken thighs (recipe to follow), and chile-cheese stuffed burgers.

Far and away, the burgers were the star. (Look for Sheila’s Old-Fashioned Potato Salad recipe tomorrow.)

Tram and Julie, filling their plates with burger and brat.

This recipe makes enough burgers for a crowd. It can easily be halved or quartered. One thing you’ll need is a 5-inch template to form the burgers with. The center green area of this plate is exactly 5-inches, so I used it as my guide.

The Grill Pit – where the Magic Happens!

Chile & Pepper Jack Stuffed Burgers

6 Anaheim chiles
4 large jalapeño chiles
3 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
12-ounces shredded pepper Jack cheese
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 pounds ground beef, divided into 32 three-ounce portions
16 hamburger buns or Kaiser rolls, split and lightly toasted

Lettuce leaves, onion and tomato slices, sweet pickle relish, mustard, and ketchup, for serving

Roast the Anaheim and jalapeño chiles on either the grill or stovetop until blacked on all sides.

To prevent the jalapeños from falling through the grates, use a stovetop-roasting grate, which can be found at kitchen stores such as Sur La Table or ordered online from HERE.

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We weathered the storm, put everything that blew down, back up, and had a wonderful pot-luck 4th of July BBQ/Pool Party.

I’ll be posting photos along with not only my recipes but the delicious recipes from the guests as well.

What better place to start than with dessert? All of the desserts were brought by guests, which makes them all my favorite!

We’ll begin with Tram’s Key Lime Pie. Tram and Steve brought Zak & Zoey, and they were the hit of the party, of course. No one could resist either one of the adorable nearly 4-month-old sweetie-pies.

Unfortunately, Heidi Klum ruined the party for Zoey. How on earth could a supermodel ruin a party for a baby, you ask! Tram, thoughtfully, dressed the twins in outfits that I had given them. The outfit I gave Zoey was from the “Truly Scrumptious Clothing by Heidi Klum” baby clothing line.

Zoey looked adorable, but the outfit was either pinching or scratching or somehow irritating her.  The otherwise sweet-natured Zoey was very unhappy. She screamed bloody murder until the outfit was finally removed but by then she was so wiped out that the only photo I got of her was of her sound asleep on my bed. Poor little Zoey!

Zak, on the other hand, was the life of the party!

Every woman in attendance had their hands on him at one time or another, as seen here with Sloane, proudly showing him off, while Papa Steve is showing off his burger and brats.

Tram and Steve hamming for the camera as they dish up their dessert plates.

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As I told you earlier in the week, I pulled out all my 4th of July decorations and began decorating the house for a little BBQ/Pool Party we are having today.

Happily, I took all the photos throughout the week because I’m not sure what it’s all going to look like when I wake up on the 4th. You see, I am typing this on Thursday night, during a massive wind/dust storm.

I lifted these two photos from the 12 News Facebook page. The one on the left, of Sky Harbor International Airport, was taken by Zachary Doublery and to one on the right was taken by Benita Skalada out the window of the airplane as she was taking off.

Yes, that is what is raging outside my home right now on Thursday night, July 3rd.

But honestly, a few tousled decorations are nothing when you consider that more than 25,000 people are without power due to the storm. And at least 24 flights bound for Phoenix were diverted to other airports.

Since I don’t know what will still be standing (hanging) when I awake in the morning, I’ll go ahead and share the details with you now.

I hung bunting over every door…

… and flags in every window.

The covered patios are alive with the Red, White & Blue…

As is the pool and BBQ area.

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American Flag Fruit Plate

American Flag Layer Dip

Confetti Mac Salad

High-Style Slider Bar

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We hosted an annual 4th of July party for many years. About 10 years ago, we stopped and instead spent the holiday in Wisconsin at the Log Mansion.

We aren’t going to Wisconsin this year because we are leaving for England and Ireland in a little more than a week.

Since we’ll be home for the first time in a decade, I pulled out all my Red, White & Blue and invited a few friends over.

I forgot just how much stuff I had! The gathering is going to be small.

But the American Pride will be everywhere!

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