Memorial Day Picnic

We are having a picnic on Sunday for Memorial Day....we'll just have something in the back yard (pool isn't open yet, but we hope to have it opened by the end of May). There will be 19 of us, maybe 20, not sure yet.

Pan-Fried Onion Dip (Ina Garten's recipe) with an appetizer tray of crackers, fresh bread cubes, and veggies

Some salsa that my sister canned last year to go along with the dip

Pulled pork done on the grill for sandwiches with Espresso BBQ Sauce

Louisville Wings (it's not dinner without wings; that's my story and I'm sticking to it)

Potato salad

Broccoli salad 

Crock pot beans

Stuffed cheddar mushrooms (it's been ages since I made stuffed 'shrooms!)

Some of the pickles that I have leftover from canning last year

Dessert is a Strawberry Cake (recipe is from Cook's Country....I haven't made it yet, so it's a new-to-me cake). My sister and I are making sugar cookies in the shapes of palm trees and we'll decorate them on Saturday (we don't decorate well at all, but it will be fun). Rick wants to make strawberry ice cream, too.

We're getting out the tub and will fill it with ice. We'll throw some soda and beer and I have some bottles of Smirnoff Ice, too. I bought some tequila for margaritas for my sister and me. 

We're doing our picnic on Sunday because there's a public sale going on Monday that Rick and I want to attend and it will be an all-day thing for us.

Dinner will be at 2:00 if anybody is interested in joining us   

If it weren't for the distance, I'd be there!  ALL of that sounds so good.  Another goodie to try:  Mike's Hard Margaritas.  Stuff like that usually gives me terrible heartburn but that one doesn't. 

Mmmm sounds delish

Sounds delicious!

We will be working out in the yard most of the weekend except for Sunday afternoon when we got to a friend's house for a cookout for her son's birthday. I have to bring buffalo chicken dip and guacamole.

I dearly love buffalo chicken dip. And guac! Yum! I found a recipe on a food board that I post on for a Corn, Avocado, and Tomato Salad (it's originally from the Deen boys....of Paula fame). For some reason, it's caught my eye and I'm thinking of making that for Sunday, too. Some of the members gave tips for making it just a wee bit better, so I put avocados on my produce list to buy on Saturday. It sounds like a good recipe. And I might have to check out Mike's Hard Margaritas, too! 

Corn, Avocado, and Tomato Salad 

2 cups cooked corn, fresh or frozen  (I'm going to halve that amount and add some black beans)
1 avocado, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (I'm using 2)
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved (Maybe grape tomatoes instead; they're on sale this week anyway)
1/2 cup finely diced red onion 

I'm going to add a chopped jalapeno and 2 or 3 minced garlic cloves
Dressing:  
2 tablespoons olive oil 
1/2 teaspoon grated lime zest 
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice 
1/4 cup chopped cilantro 
1/4 teaspoon salt 
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Combine the corn, avocado, tomatoes and onion in a large glass bowl. Mix together the dressing ingredients in another bowl, pour over the salad, and gently toss to mix.
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Dinner is postponed until next week. We just finished telling everybody and they're all OK with it. While Rick is feeling better and I'm feeling better than I was yesterday (which I spent pretty much all day Friday and Friday night in bed), we don't feel comfortable being around everybody and, especially, the children. Rick's parents are elderly and it's simply not a good thing. We will do our picnic next weekend instead.

I already bought my avocados, though, so we'll do a test run of that corn and avocado salad tomorrow anyway, probably with hot dogs. I have the pork out of the freezer and it's thawed, so we'll make the pork, then I'll shred it and then freeze it til next weekend. I'll go ahead and make the crock pot beans tomorrow too, as the ground beef is already thawed for that and I don't want to re-freeze the meat. The beans can go into the freezer; I can throw them back into the crock pot next Sunday. I was going to start cooking tonight, but now I don't have to. 

We felt badly, but it's better to do it this way than it is to have 20 people possibly become ill from being around us. And I know it's just a summer cold, but I don't want anybody catching a cold if we can avoid it. Especially our grandchildren and Rick's parents.

I think that was wise and I'm glad everyone took it well.  They probably know that you wouldn't call it off unless you really felt that it was best. 

I'll be watching/waiting to hear how the avocado salad turns out!  I hated avocado until a little over 10 years ago.  I don't eat a lot of it, but I enjoy it when I do.  Also, I like it cubed the best (rather than whipped into something else) so this recipe intrigues me.

It's a shame you have to postpone it, but best to play it safe.

Hope you both feel better soon. Get lots of rest and take care of yourselves. Having a picnic next week will be fun.

Sorry to hear you and Rick aren't up too par to have your picnic but you're right in not doing it today.  Glad you're both feeling a little better today.  Enjoy the rest of the weekend, at least you're both off work, that's always a good thing .

peaches08 said:

 
I think that was wise and I'm glad everyone took it well.  They probably know that you wouldn't call it off unless you really felt that it was best. 

I'll be watching/waiting to hear how the avocado salad turns out!  I hated avocado until a little over 10 years ago.  I don't eat a lot of it, but I enjoy it when I do.  Also, I like it cubed the best (rather than whipped into something else) so this recipe intrigues me.

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I didn't like it at all, peaches. I had halved the recipe, since it was just Rick and me. I liked the lime dressing with the vegetables. But I didn't like the texture of the avocado at all. I guess I like avocado whipped into guac, but not cut into chunks. It was too much of a buttery texture with the avocado and I hated it. If you like the cubed avocado, you'll probably like the recipe. 

I don't care for avocado because of the texture.  I like the taste but the texture really bothers me.  It's almost like pure fat.

Winchester said:

 
I didn't like it at all, peaches. I had halved the recipe, since it was just Rick and me. I liked the lime dressing with the vegetables. But I didn't like the texture of the avocado at all. I guess I like avocado whipped into guac, but not cut into chunks. It was too much of a buttery texture with the avocado and I hated it. If you like the cubed avocado, you'll probably like the recipe. 

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I do like the buttery texture, so I just might like it!  The first time I had avocado and liked it was in a shrimp cocktail (shrimp soup?) at a Mexican restaurant.  I ate a piece and loved it, but never could get crazy for guac.  I find guac to just be mushed tasteless something that neither adds nor detracts from something, unless they added something to the guac to give it some flavor.