Here are some recipes that will make for a fantastic 4th of July celebration. I can guarantee that if you use this menu and these recipes, you’ll have a spectacular spread for your 4th of July celebration.

First are the salads to accompany the meal. You don’t want to spend all day in the kitchen, so here are two salads that are out of this world and will only take a few minutes to make.

Here is a wonderful corn salad. It is easy to make - and it is delicious. Best of all, you can make it the day beforehand so you’ll have more time to enjoy the 4th of July.

Meleah’s Corn Salad

For the other, I’d suggest this great Orange-Feta-Walnut-Field Greens salad. It’s another super easy but scrumptious dish. Have the ingredients on hand, and when you’re ready for the meal, just dump it all in a big bowl, and you’re ready to go. A commercial bottled vinaigrette is great to go with it.

Orange-Feta-Walnut-Field Greens Salad

Next is the drink. You, of course, need Southern sweet iced tea. Anything else is sacrilege. You can use either sugar or Splenda. I always use Splenda - and I love this iced tea made with Splenda. However, sugar would be just as good. I make a gallon of this tea at least a couple times each week.

Sweet Iced Tea

You need to slow-smoke some ribs to make an official 4th of July meal. Buy the best quality babyback ribs you can find. Rinse them well. Then make a rub of salt, pepper, paprika, seasoning salt, onion powder, garlic salt. Just add enough of everything to rub it well into all surfaces of the ribs. Taste the rub before you use it. Be careful not to overdo the salt. Add all the ingredients in a small bowl, mix well and then taste to be sure it has the flavor you want. You will need 1/4 - 1/2 cup of the rub - depending on how many ribs you’re cooking. Once I’ve rubbed down the ribs, I always wrap the ribs well with aluminum foil, place them in a large pan and cook them in the oven at a very low temp for two or three hours (about 275 - 300 degrees). Then I transfer them to the smoker and smoke them for a few hours. Cooking them in the oven for awhile guarantees they’ll be falling-off-the-bones tender. If you don’t have a smoker, you can leave them in the oven until they’re done. THEN transfer them to a grill and grill them for 15-20 minutes to get grill marks and that grilled flavor in them. Use your favorite barbecue sauce when you eat them. YUM! I LOVE smoked/grilled ribs.

If you want bread, just buy some rolls or whatever kind of bread you like - the heat & eat kind. With this meal, bread is secondary and making something from scratch would be a waste of time, in my opinion. Spend your time and efforts on the important parts.

Dessert is next. With strawberries being so plentiful this time of year, I suggest strawberry shortcake. However, don’t go for the same old strawberry shortcake. Use my special recipe for the absolute BEST strawberry shortcake you’ll ever put in your mouth.

Strawberry Shortcake with Custard

Now - wasn’t that a wonderful and delicious meal?

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 2:44 pm and is filed under food/restaurants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.