(Photo by JeffreyW)
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From our Food Goddess, TaMara (who added a postscript to her email this afternoon: “At the moment it’s actually raining, don’t know yet if it’s enough to help the fire fight – but couldn’t hurt.”)
What a week. The Colorado wildfires became personal again, as my office was smack in the middle of an evacuation zone. The authorities never had to make it mandatory and as I write this, that fire is well contained. Add to that, one of the guys I work with was in a horrible motorcycle accident at the beginning of the week and that shook us all up. I was ready for the week to be over sometime around Tuesday night, so I’m grateful it’s Thursday and the weekend is within sprinting distance. Even happier that Independence Day is around the corner
Since I love July 4th, I have quite a few recipes that celebrate it with great picnic foods. All 21 of them can be found at this link. There is quite a variety: fancy appetizers; cold salads; grilling ideas; fun desserts; and even cold drinks. There is also an entire post of potato salad recipes from Balloon-Juicers.
I really like tonight’s featured recipe. It was a huge hit last year at the July 4th picnic. I’m actually making it right now for a going away party, that’s how it became tonight’s recipe.
All right, now it’s your turn, what are your favorite foods on July 4th? Are you all-American with burgers and dogs or something more sophisticated? Share your favorites in the comments and we can all argue about it, good-naturedly of course.
Tonight’s featured recipe:
Chipotle Macaroni Salad
Chipotle Mayonnaise:
1 cup mayonnaise
2 chipotles in adobo sauce, chopped
1 tablespoon adobo sauce
1 tbsp limejuiceMix together ingredients and set aside while macaroni cooks.
Macaroni Salad:
1 lb elbow macaroni
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 stalk celery, minced
4 green onions, chopped
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp minced parsley
8 oz cubed sharp cheddar cheese
4 thick cut bacon strips, cooked and crumbled (optional)
1 cup chipotle mayonnaise
Salt and freshly ground black pepperBring water to a boil, add 1 tsp salt and macaroni. Cook until al dente (firm to tooth). Immediately drain and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process. Do not drain well, allow macaroni to stay wet, remove to bowl. Immediately add garlic, celery, onion, parsley and lemon juice and let sit for 5 minutes. Stir in cheddar cheese, bacon and chipotle mayonnaise. Salt and pepper to taste. Allow to chill 15 – 30 minutes. Serves 8-10.
Just a note: There will be no recipe exchange next Thursday, we’ll pick up again on July 12th.
Xecky Gilchrist
OMG this looks so delicious. Thank you!
Redshift
My friend, whose party we go to every year, makes his own bratwurst. That’s the thing I look forward to the most on the 4th. Well, that and the liquid nitrogen ice cream.
Just Some Fuckhead
Remember when you were a kid and some mom, usually yours, would always make macaroni salad for a picnic or cookout and it was overcooked elbow macaroni, celery, tomatoes and mayonnaise mixed together to form some bland, hideous concoction that almost never got touched?
This reminded me of that, but in a good way.
Mnemosyne
We basically have no social life, but back in the days when I did, this Caesar Potato Salad was always a huge hit at picnics and potlucks. I usually left out the anchovies because I don’t eat them with anything else, so they would just go to waste.
I’ve been back OP (on program) this week but had a very bad food day today. Stress + cookies + lunch I didn’t control = bad food day. I’m making chicken en papillote to try and counteract some of it, and then I’m having Ben & Jerry’s Banana Peanut Butter Frozen Greek Yogurt, because shut up, that’s why.
Mnemosyne
@Redshift:
My best friend is Polish, married to a German, so they have a big Oktoberfest bash every year. She doesn’t make her bratwurst from scratch, but she knows how to do the boil-then-bake method that cooks them perfectly.
wag
The salad looks great. I might do it for the 4th and substitute chorizo for the bacon
TaMara (BHF)
@Just Some Fuckhead: A couple of keys to this recipe – adding the first ingredients to wet, al dente pasta – it absorbs the flavors along with the excess water.
Then you don’t add the remaining ingredients until 15-30 minutes before serving (I keep everything chilled until mixing). This keeps it from getting soggy, or worse, dry and sticky as it absorbs all the mayo. This is the death knell for most macaroni salads. It becomes like paste.
Ash Can
“what are your favorite foods on July 4th?”
We have a dumb old beaten-up old-school Weber Kettle in the back yard (a wedding present from 17 years ago), so we go with the basic grilled goodies for both Memorial Day and the 4th of July (we’d do it for Labor Day too but we always spend that day unpacking from Wisconsin and getting school supplies ready for Day One). That means a trip to Paulina Market to get a shopping bag full of the best damned sausages in the city, which go on the grill and get cooked to a turn under the watchful eyes of M-80 and his brother, who stand there over the grill smoking cigars and talking golf. Add to that a bowl of Jewel’s deli potato salad and/or Dominick’s cole slaw (those are grocery chains, for you non-Chicagoans), some fresh grilled corn on the cob, a watermelon cooling on the basement floor, and a nice selection of Belgian beers and/or good microbrews from anywhere in WI/IL/IN/MI, and you got yourself a bodacious picnic. :)
TaMara (BHF)
@Ash Can: Grilled corn is my all time summer favorite. Yum.
Schlemizel
I used to love ribs, particularly beef ribs marinated over night then given a dry rub and slow cooked with a lot of smoke.
For desert I still like to take a pineapple and slice it into 8 wedges (slice top to bottom and cut off the woody core) then I soak them in rum and brown sugar while the ribs cook. Put them on skewers and char them on the hottest part the grill. You can eat as is or cut into chunks over ice cream
Mnemosyne
@Ash Can:
Yes, but do you keep a big metal container full of melted butter on the edge of the grill so you can dip the grilled corn in it before you pile it on a plate?
That’s the real North Shore way to do it.
TaMara (BHF)
Oh my. Just realized the tomatoes were omitted from ingredients. Two large tomatoes, chopped or equivalent. Sorry. Recipe is corrected on the blog now, too.
Martin
Having some friends over next week. 2 racks of ribs, 2 rotisserie chickens, and probably a mess of steaks and brats on my big fucking Weber. Homemade baked beans, dill potato salad, cornbread, salad, carrot cake, and an obscene quantity of mojtos.
Forgot about the corn. Thanks mnemosyne.
Ash Can
@Mnemosyne: No, but we do have a modestly-sized back yard where everyone can spit watermelon seeds at random. Also too, I copied that Caesar potato salad recipe!
@Schlemizel: That grilled pineapple recipe sounds fabulous too!
Martin
346 homes lost in CO Springs. Guess the free market wasn’t able to stop that fire.
Narcissus
@Just Some Fuckhead: I’m opposed to salads-that-are-not-salads* on principle because of that experience.
*Macaroni, Ham, Egg, Tuna, et cetera
Valdivia
Looks yum. Haven’t given the 4th a thought yet. Bbq sounds great though.
Just Some Fuckhead
While we’re all planning our July 4th gormandizing, take a moment to remember the folks only a few miles away who are going without so you can have more.
ETA: America, fuck yeah!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Narcissus: I make a killer pasta salad with shells, black olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, spring lettuce mix and a ton of garlic, olive oil and feta cheese.
.. and an awesome potato salad with green olives and bacon.
Otherwise, I’m pretty much with ya there.
JCT
That looks great Tamara.
We’ve always gone for the beer can chicken and ribs on the ancient Weber kettle approach — plus some grilled corn.
But I just took delivery of a surprise housewarming gift for my husband — a new Weber Smokey Mountain bullet smoker, so hopefully we’re going “low and slow” this time.
I’m hungry already.
Schlemizel
@Narcissus: You missed the ‘best’ not really a salad from the past. I tell the kids I work with about the infamous jello salad and they don’t believe me!
Lemon jello mixed as normal, add some shredded cabbage and carrots and mayo, put in a ring mold and refrigerate until solid. Or the variation, orange jello with canned mandarin oranges and cottage cheese.
jl
I approve of all picnic foods. Especially good ones like in the post.
And also the brave patriotic All American attempts slandard in the comments.
At the first BJ 4oJ picnic, you watch. I will sample everything, even the poor orange jello with mandarins and cottage cheese mixed in.
As an unc of mine would exclaim, Hey it’s all gonna get mixed up down there anyway!
You food snoots just wouldn’t understand (sniffle sniffle sniff).
Mnemosyne
@Schlemizel:
Nah, that’s not a salad. Ambrosia, now that’s a salad.
jl
@Mnemosyne:
I do belive that the high and mighty food snoots here have indicated that such vulgar compotery as ambrosia is not refined enough for their delicate taste buds.
They can’t have none. Nyah nyah hyaaah!
scav
@jl: Call it an emulsion and sneak some onto their plates. Play with their little minds. (if you don’t want to share, you can give them my share, I’m not wild about shredded coconut. My current personal odd family salad is sliced bananas (length-ways) quick smear of mayonnaise and chopped salted peanuts. Oddly enough, it came down both sides of the family.)
jl
@scav:
That banana thing sounds like some snack an misguided
illegalundocumented space alien would fix, through an unfortunate misunderstanding of how earth food works.You from around these parts?
scav
@jl: Looking at some of my relatives, I’m not entirely sure, but one side insists they picked up the idea from a Walgreen Lunch counter. All I can say though is the mix of sweet and ever so slightly sour unctuous topped with peanuts ain’t bad for offworld genomes hanging out at cheap lunch dives.
RadioOne
you should simmer the onion, garlic, parsley, and lemon juice before adding it into the pasta, but overall not bad.
Schlemizel
@Mnemosyne: A guilty confession, I had forgotten about that one but as a kid it was a favorite. 8-{D