BBQ Recap & Sweet Links

A couple of weekends ago, my fiancé and I hosted an end of summer BBQ. (I know, I'm very behind on posting.) This summer has gone by so fast and so much of our free time has been spent on wedding planning that we wanted to get in one last summer celebration before the seasons change.

It was also the last BBQ at my house which was somewhat bittersweet. But we did it right – great friends and great food made for a great night!

We provided the meat and fixings, refreshments and desserts. Oh did we have desserts...but more on that later!

We asked guests to bring a salad or side dish to share and we had an overflowing table of amazing and delicious dishes. We have some very talented friends and I definitely need to track down some of the recipes!

Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of everything, but some of the highlights were:

Broccoli, Almond and Grape Salad – It might sound odd, but it was wonderful
Cha Cha Chicken Canapes – These were all gone by the end of the night
Deviled Eggs – A classic; they were gone immediately
Fruit Salad – Very refreshing
Roasted Vegetables – Delicious; they balanced out the sweets, or so I like to tell myself
Homemade Baked Beans – Perfect for a BBQ
Baked Jalepeno Cheese Dip – This is one of my favorites.
Pioneer Woman’s Bacon Jalepeno Poppers – Of course!

I’m sure I’m forgetting some of the fabulous dishes, so my apologies, they were all great and there were just too many to keep track of.

Also, my fiancé did an excellent job at the grill!

To finish off the menu, we had a selection of desserts.

Everybody had their personal favorites; which is the whole point of offering a selection of desserts. Even some of the items that I wasn’t thrilled with found a fan in the crowd. Below is a list of the desserts (with links to the recipes) and my editorial thoughts.

Italian Cream Cake (from Pioneer Woman’s Friend) – I was very much looking forward to this and thought it would be my favorite. Sadly, however, I wasn’t as thrilled with it as I anticipated…it was really, really sweet; perhaps a tad too sweet. I used unsalted butter in the recipe (because I always use unsalted butter for baking) but I’m wondering if salted butter would have balanced out some of the sweetness…the recipe did not specify.

Better Than Crack Brownies (from How Sweet Treats) – This were a crowd favorite, they were delicious and not very hard to make at all. If you like peanut butter and chocolate, this is a must try.

Chewy Lime and Coconut Sugar Cookies (from Two Peas and their Pod) – These were my favorite! I love coconut and the hint of lime gave them the perfect fresh and tropical taste. Very good!

Brown Butter Pound Cake Ice Cream Petit Fours (from July Daring Bakers Challenge) – I liked how the pound cake turned out; I wasn’t thrilled with the dark chocolate glaze. These were definitely not my favorite, but they did find a few fans that loved the dark chocolate glaze.

Enjoy!

Dinner with a Tropical Twist

A while back I asked the fiancé to go through a few of my cookbooks and mark recipes that he thought sounded good. One of them was Mango Chipotle Pot Roast from Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Slow Cooker Recipes. It is a gluten-free recipe which would made it perfect for dinner Friday night since my parents were coming over.

I also remembered a recipe I’d wanted to try from an old Whole Foods magazine; Pan de Coco (Coconut Bread). I thought the coconut would go well with the mango and thus started a meal inspired by a semi-tropical theme.

Mandarin Orange Spinach Salad
Pan de Coco (Coconut Bread)
Mango Chipotle Pot Roast
Brown Rice (to go with the pot roast and because not everyone could have the rolls since they definitely were not gluten-free)
Hawaiian Crispies (for dessert)

Details, reviews, pictures, thoughts and recipes are listed below if any of the above menu items catch your interest.

Clearly I’m still infatuated with spinach, I’m not sure this would even qualify as a recipe since it’s so incredibly simple, but it was very good.

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Mandarin Orange Spinach Salad

Spinach
Mandarin oranges
Sliced almonds
Poppy seed dressing

Place spinach in bowl(s), top with mandarin oranges, sliced almonds and poppy seed dressing.
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Aside from the Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls, I’ve never made any type of bread/dinner roll. It actually wasn’t that hard at all. The majority of the time is spent waiting on the dough to rise. The rolls turned out very well. They didn’t taste as coconut-y as I thought they would, it was more a hint of coconut, they were still good though.

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Pan de Coco (Coconut Bread)

From Whole Foods magazine March/April 2009
The recipe is also online and can be found here: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/2253

I would note that I did two things different from the recipe. One, I used Light Coconut Milk; it worked fine, but I wonder if regular coconut milk would have provided a stronger coconut flavor to the rolls. Two, I used sweetened coconut because I couldn’t find unsweetened.
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The pot roast was pretty good and pretty simple since everything went into the crock pot in the morning and just cooked all day. I will say though, I’m not a fan of recipes that have you place hot vegetables and juices into the blender. As the recipe instructed, I covered the blender with a towel but it still exploded hot liquid all over my arm and the kitchen.

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Mango Chipotle Pot Roast

If you like slow cooker recipes, check out Sandra’s book.
Make according to recipe in book; serve with brown rice.
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Since everything else was a bit tropical I wanted to keep the theme going for dessert, so I went over to Tasty Kitchen and searched for some recipes. Actually, originally I was going to try to spice up the rice that went with the pot roast so I entered rice into the search field and Hawaiian Crispies was one of the results.

If you haven’t checked out Tasty Kitchen you definitely should, it’s a lot of fun. It’s not just an online resource with TONS of recipes, but it’s also a community of people that enjoy cooking and sharing. If you sign-up, let me know and I’ll add you to my friend list. I made a few minor adjustments to the recipe (noted below) and it turned out great; my mom LOVED them.

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Hawaiian Crispies

The recipe can be found here. Although, I did make a couple of changes to the version I made Friday night.

First, I halved the recipe. Second, I added a little bit of coconut milk in with the melted butter and marshmallow mixture, not a lot, I’d guess maybe about a teaspoon at most. Third, I didn’t cover the top completely with candy melts, I thought that might be a little too much sweetness, so I just drizzled some on top and then topped with shredded coconut.
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Hope you enjoy!