Fun, Fabulous, 4th of July Food

I love food. There, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Food is definitely one of my favorite things, and I would probably weigh 20 pounds less if I didn’t love it so much. One of the things I love about food is the way it brings people together, especially around holidays.

This year, 4th of July was a little different for my family. It was the first major holiday since my parents’ divorce, and the first one where my Mom wasn’t there to cook a big meal as she has done for the past 22 years of my life. Rather than spend the holiday with my dad and sisters eating take out, I decided to try and fill her shoes by making a really good 4th of July dinner.

I planned the menu out a few days in advance and went shopping early on Wednesday with my little sister, Caroline (who also proved to be a big help in the kitchen!) We started cooking at 1 PM. First, I made a spectacular loaded baked potato salad. (A big-shout out to Pinterest for giving me this awesome recipe as well as other everyday food inspiration!)

Next I tackled my red velvet cupcakes with homemade cream cheese frosting. I will never use canned frosting again now that I know how much better it tastes when it’s freshly made without all those chemicals! Surprisingly, these turned out to be the most time consuming part of the dinner. It probably would have taken less time if I had just made a whole red velvet cake, but I’m a big believer that cupcakes are always far superior to cake (and much more fun to eat.) Besides, who wants to wash all those forks?

The next thing I tackled were the deviled eggs.  I used my 91 year old great-grandma (Nana’s) recipe. Nana is famous for two things: her fudge at Christmas, and her deviled eggs. She was thrilled when I called to ask for her recipe. It was funny because when she explained to me how to make them, she never actually used a measurable quantity of anything. She just told me to add a little of this and some of that. No measuring cups or measuring spoons in Nana’s kitchen I guess!

Everything else was super easy to throw together at the end. Heat a can of Bush’s Baked Beans over the stove, slice up a juicy seedless watermelon, shuck and steam some fresh corn cobs. Austin came over at about 4:00 to tackle the steak. I was admittedly nervous about letting him cook the meat because he has never grilled a day in his life, and there is nothing more upsetting to me than overdone or improperly cooked steak. (Okay, I’m exaggerating. But still.) He completely surprised me by grilling some of the best steak I’ve ever had! He seasoned it with coarse salt and pepper, seared it on the grill with garlic and onion powder, and then cooked the first side for 7 minutes and the second side for 5 over low heat. Then he covered it and let it rest for a few minutes to lock in the juicy yumminess. Oh my goodness, it was melt-in-your-mouth kind of good. Who knew that my husband who can barely cook a bowl of cereal would be such a grill master? He was pretty proud of himself and I was too.

Here is our completed dinner, 5 hours after I started cooking it!

I think my family really loved our little feast. It was nice to be able to serve them in this way and to maintain a sense of normalcy and tradition when so many things have changed in our lives. Plus, I love every minute that I get to spend in my Dad’s big ole’ kitchen, with counter space galore.  Hope your 4th of July barbeque was just as fun and delicious as mine!