The first of my two main-course dishes for the 4^th of July Pot-Luck Pool Party is a pulled pork recipe that came from Williams-Sonoma. I altered the recipe to fit my needs.

Need #1 – I did not want to buy a jar of the Williams-Sonoma pulled pork starter. It cost too much and after going online and looking at the list of ingredients, I had all of it on hand anyhow, so I made my own.

Need #2 – I buy my pork shoulder at Costco and a 2.5 pound piece (which is what the Williams-Sonoma recipe called for) would be a joke at Costco. Mine weighed in at a whopping 15 pounds. This meant I needed to quadruple the original recipe, which was more than fine because the original served only 4 to 6 and I had more than 24 mouths to feed. I realize that 15 pounds is 6x as much, but the remaining ingredients only needed to be 4x more.

The big trick to the thing was cooking it in a slow cooker in two batches. It wasn’t difficult and took less time and effort than I expected it would. I thought about calling a neighbor to borrow a second slow cooker, but I was too lazy. That is a good option though.

Another issue was that it never even crossed my mind to take a photo of even one sandwich. I have photos of the pork in the chafing dish and of the slaw on the platter. But no individual sandwiches pics or of the cute setup I had for the little sandwich baskets and paper liners that I worked super hard to get all fixed up. Darn it! As you can see, I had to improvise with those “close-up” images. Sad, but it’s all I got.

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I had an abundance of watermelon to use up at the 4^th of July Pot-Luck Pool Party. The week prior, I had purchased four small seedless watermelons to make these tasty treats. Kim, Peggy, Anne, and I were planning to get together at Kim’s new house for a little housewarming happy hour. At the last minute, plans changed. Without the party on the horizon, I don’t know what I would have done with them all!

I used them up in a non-alcoholic watermelon-strawberry-lemon slushy and in this refreshing watermelon salad.

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If you know me, you know that when I have a theme, I carry it out to the nth degree. Here is my train of thought, “Red, white & blue is the theme, so we absolutely have to have a RW&B salad!”  This one did not disappoint. Well, except for the fact that I forgot to add the almonds and didn’t remember until after I took the photos, and more discouraging until after nearly half of the people had made their plates. Oh well.

There was some left, although there probably wouldn’t have been if I’d remembered the darn almonds! Anyhow, I pulled out the lettuce leaves and packed them away in the fridge.

Two days later, I was home alone and thinking about dinner. I was looking at the container of leftover salad trying to decide if I should add new lettuce to it or just toss it in the trash. Suddenly I had an overwhelming craving for pancakes. Seriously, is there anything better than breakfast for dinner? So I whipped up a batch of pancakes and topped them with the leftover, kind of soggy, berries, burrata, and fresh (not soggy!) almonds – delish!

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I know that yesterday I mentioned that I’d highlight the 4th of July main courses and dessert next, but that was before I remembered that in addition to all the wonderful salads and sides my friends brought, I also made a few sides and salads myself. So let’s get to those first.

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Connor’s friend, Rachael, brought these super easy and super tasty little appetizer picks. Luckily I was able to snap a photo before they were all snapped up!

No one had signed up for chips and dip, so I asked Connor to provide those.

You have to have chips and dip!

I threw together a red, white, and blue flag snack tray using, red grapes, banana slices, strawberries, yogurt-covered pretzels, blueberries, and raspberries.

Lastly, I purchased a mock gingerbread house at Trader Joe’s, which was really a sugar cookie White House and I pretended like it was Christmas in July. I loved putting it together since our long family tradition of Marissa and Connor each assembling their own Christmas gingerbread houses has fallen by the wayside. Mostly because they hate it! Oh well, a mom can reminisce.

These were a few of the little extras at the 4^th of July Party Pot-Luck Pool Party. The main course and dessert details will follow in the coming days.

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George and Julie brought not only a tasty broccoli salad but their four beautiful children as well. Actually, the party more than doubled in size from when I originally lamented about it being so small, in this post. That made me happy. My motto when it comes to parties is always “the more the merrier!” When kids and teens are added to the mix, nothing could be truer!

Case in point – I asked Dave to please set up the ping-pong table and the lawn games; cornhole, ladder ball toss, and croquet.

He balked, saying that no one was going to play any of those things because it was too hot. I argued that people would hop in and out of the pool and I wanted there to be a variety of activities for them to choose from.

Um, do you want to take a wild guess at who was right? Those kids walked straight in the front door, through the house, and into the yard. All games and activities were played, not only the ones above but also the pool volleyball and basketball and the putting green. Take that 109 degrees!

Back to the broccoli salad. Julie said the recipe comes from a department store restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. The store was called Lazarus & Co. and although it is no longer there, the salad lives on. Thanks for sharing, Julie!

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My cousin, Ty, and his beautiful wife, Michelle, brought a pasta salad to the potluck. She named it, not me. She cracks me up.

It’s not only ridiculously easy but also ridiculously delicious!

Above are the “Three T’s” –  Ty, Tram, and the Twins. Below is Michelle with Zoey … doing … I’m not sure what but they sure are cute!

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Here are a few select images of decorations from our 4th of July Pot-Luck Pool Party.

I say “a few select” because I had more than six dozen to choose from.

Believe it or not, I’m exercising a lot of constraint here.

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This is a photo of my lovely neighbors, Dana and Dale, enjoying dinner at the swim-up bar.

While I would love to post dozens of photos from our 4th of July Pot-Luck Pool Party, I am beyond exhausted, so much so that I’m barely able to type. Seriously! It’s taken me forever to get my fingers to type these letters correctly. It’s like I have no control over my motor skills… it’s only 7:25 PM on a Tuesday night and I’m ready to hit the hay, but before I do, I want to post at least one recipe. With all that in mind – please excuse any and all typos, grammar mistakes, and basic rattling on…

My beautiful neighbor, Dana, adapted a recipe from Simply Recipes and it was the hit of the party and my personal favorite! Not only did I love it but I love that Dana is all about the presentation. She not only brought it ready to serve in a cute Red, White & Blue Flag Bowl, but she also had that bowl sitting in a clear bowl filled with ice to keep her dish cold. She also brought her own serving spoon and blue tortilla chips in a red bowl … AND she brought the perfect plastic martini/margarita glasses to serve it in! Like I said – I loved it and I love her! Pure Perfection.

OK, here’s the recipe – I need to go to sleep before I pass out.

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This dessert recipe could not be easier or have less ingredients. Is four ingredients few enough for you?

Photo

I made them for our small 4th of July Pool Party, so one batch is just enough. I found a video from dingster.eats on Instagram and immediately knew that this is my kind of baking recipe and that it would be perfect for the 4th.

They are made in Mason jar bands and are the cutest things ever.

I’ll also be baking my All-American Berry-Cherry Flag Pie.  For that recipe, I’ll need a can of cherry and a half can of blueberry pie filling.

With that in mind, I decided to use three pie-filling flavors for the hand pies; apple for the White, the other half of a can of blueberry for the Blue, and a few tablespoons of the cherry for the Red. For the flag pie, I plan to supplement extra fresh cherries with the cherry filling I swiped from the can. Ignore the can of peach pie filling, I was waffling between the apple and peach and ultimately decided that since it’s the 4th of July, it had to be an apple!

One last thing – I used a Silpat to line my baking sheet. I don’t recommend that the bottoms did not brown properly. Use parchment or just grease the baking sheet instead.

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