Recipe Shoutouts!

Saturday we hosted my sister's family and my mom at a giant "unbirthday" BBQ.  We all have a hard time getting together so it was special to have a whole afternoon to (re)connect.  I wanted to have a variety of foods because I am not really sure what they all like.  Also I get bored easily and like to try new recipes.  It is a failing of mine.  I collect recipes. I often make them only a few times, even if we like them (unless some one of the kids reminds me of its existance) because I am off chasing that new taste sensation for us.

Anyway, for this BBQ we had the standards.  Meat for the carnivores (which they brought themselves; I draw the line at buying meat!) veggie burgers for the 6 of us.  K's potato salad which is killer.  I think it is a Swedish thing.  In her family (which is 100 per cent Swede) they have potato salad at every single buffet and BBQ.  Even if it is the Yule buffet, there is potato salad.  I speak truth.  We had a giant green salad with all the fresh produce I could tuck in there because fresh green salad is a treasure.  In a couple of months I'll be reduced to getting greens from Guatamala or something and bemoaning my increased carbon footprint so I am enjoying local produce these days!  A variety of chips, our home made super hot salsa had the table area crammed as well.  But I wanted another salady type thing.  Lucky for me, Cindy has an amazing daughter Sarah who has a cooking blog.  Sarah posted a green bean salad that was oh so very yummy.  I should have put in the whole onion she said it needed, but I did a bit less wondering if others loved onions as much as I do.  Next time it is one full onion all the way!  LOL  For beverages, we had a cooler filled with two kinds of soda (a rare occurance at our house so it had my kids hovering there in eager anticipation), iced tea and home made lemonade.  Yum!  As this was an "unbirthday" BBQ we were having a big birthday cake which I made the day before.  I do scratch cakes but have not mastered scratch frosting and K had been feeling ill so I used storebought.  I had watermelon because I thought some folks might want only fruit not sweets.  (what was I thinking, no one but me wanted watermelon!!) Then I thought that I needed another dessert.  Something sweet but not as sweet as cake, cool and refreshing.  And over at The Pioneer Woman Ree came to my rescue with a quick and easy recipe for a chilled raspberry pie.  I had to change the crust to shortbread because she used chocolate and I am allergic (and of course wanted a sliver too!)  Then I got to the store and found no raspberries so I used blackberries instead.  And I can tell you it mattered not one whit.  It was delish with a capital D.  And it is such a quick and easy recipe I may  make it again for other similar functions.  Unless I feel compelled to go recipe surfing again!  LOL