4th and food.

I love making delicious food. All holidays get me in the cookin' spirit. I have to say, lest you think otherwise, that I have yet to figure out how to make this cooking spirit live on day to day. I don't cook dinner every night. I don't have a weekly menu and I rarely go to the grocery store with more than a meal or two planned. I'd really like to get better at planning meals for each week, but for some reason, spontaneous cooking is JUST MORE FUN.

For the 4th we didn't have any big plans. We were sitting at the pool at about 2 in the afternoon and as I flipped through my Martha Stewart the urge came over me. I saw burgers stacked high with mouth-watering toppings, I saw homemade, beer-batterd onion rings, I saw goat cheese-stuffed piquillo peppers, I thought about our favorite salad I had made a few nights before, and I saw heaven opened up before me! I had to have it! Needless to say I had fun cooking up and chowing down on our little meal with thanks (in the cooking and devouring categories) to Dru and Katie. Thought I'd post two of the recipes we used. Cause they are sooo delicious that I really hope you will try them. I promise I wouldn't post anything we didn't love. These are tried and true favorites over here!

First, is our favorite salad:

For the dressing:
-1/4 cup oil (I mix olive and vegetable)
-6 T. rice vinegar
-1/8 cup sugar
-pepper

Pour dressing over:
-mixed greens (dressing would make enough for about 1 lb)
-3-4 chopped green onions
-glazed nuts (walnuts or pecans are good). To glaze heat nuts covered in sugar over med-high heat moving constantly til sugar melts and creates a glaze over the nuts. Let cool.)
-2 fresh pears, chopped
-crumbled blue cheese

This makes ALOT! Serves 6-8. But it's so good it'll go fast! I'll cut the recipe in half and Dru and I will split the whole thing.







The other recipe I wanted to share is the homemade onion rings. Best I've ever had. Awesome flavor with beer, lemon, and cayenne pepper. Mmmmm, not gluten-free, but worth the cheat! It's from Martha so click here. I had to add some extra flour to thicken the batter but otherwise I followed this exactly and they turned out awesome. Definitely making these again.