The Fourth of July is almost here so I wanted to do a post on food items to celebrate. Many of us get invited to barbecues and a festive, but easy flag inspired dessert to bring involves fruit and mini marshmallow skewers. I saw this neat melamine tray this past week on sale at Crate and Barrel for $11.97. I like it because itās big, lightweight and non-breakable. For the dessert you just layer on skewers of blue berries for the stars, and raspberries with mini-marshmallows for the stripes. I adapted this recipe from a pin on Pinterest from Boogiewipes.
Patriotic dessert number two is inspired by the original tollhouse cookie recipe on the back of the Nestleās semisweet chocolate chip bag. But instead of chocolate chips I substituted red, white, and blue milk chocolate M&Ms. I bought these at my local higher end grocery store (Sunset foods), but theyāre also available on Amazon. (By the way at Sunset they also sell caramel flavored red, white, and blue M&Ms on the same display as the milk chocolate, so check to get the ones you want.)
I served the cookies on a white ceramic Nora Fleming platter with an interchangeable flag charm. I love this Nora Fleming platter (this one is square, mine is rectangular and both are great) and enjoy changing it out for the various holidays. She now has some of her platters in melamine which is great for poolside entertaining.
The last fun Fourth food idea is an appetizer. I took spicy Italian sausage links and simmered them for 15 minutes in beer. I did this the day before my event. Then during the actual barbecue my husband grilled the sausages until they were done. Finally I cut the links into bite-sized pieces, skewered each with a flag toothpick (Amazon), and served them on a red plate (Homegoods). Here are similar ones from Amazon.
For the table I did a layered setting starting with a red underlying cloth and an overlying striped cloth (World Market) placed on an angle. Then for each place setting I used striped (Crate and Barrel) placemats with red (Amazon) cotton napkins. I then placed clear blue glass old (Crate and Barrel) salad plates over old red rimmed (Crate and Barrel) white plates for the entree. I used red glasses (Homegoods) and red unscented (Crate and Barrel) candles in hurricanes. To complete this look I used a vintage flag inspired box (Homegoods) in which I placed red silk geraniums and red tissue paper. It was fun, and festive. Happy Fourth of July!
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PS Hereās a post on red, white and blue home decorations.
PPS And one on patriotic outfits.
