July Fourth Food Fireworks for Your Family Celebration

Sharing some food fireworks from our family to enjoy your July Fourth celebration: Jayne’s Potato Salad and a Corn on the Cob secret.

What does this red white and blue holiday mean to you?

We’re low-key Fourth celebrators at our house.

We love our country and deeply value the freedoms it stands for.

We try to show that esteem all year in any way we can, mostly by serving the people of our country, in our tiny ways.

And we support our country’s leaders in our prayers, trusting them to follow the values of the old constitution.  (Have you ever wished for that job?)  In these days of fake news and media trashing, that has to be the most thankless work ever.  So they need many prayers, along with all the other people who serve.

(One tangible contribution made to a leader of our town this year was to put a pony tail in her hair. She stopped by a few days after wrist surgery. She planned to go out in public for the first time, and needed her hair in order.  No awards, but hey, it needed to be done.)

You will notice I put Food first on my list of Fourth of July blessings.

The menu for our family feast?  The delish food we’ll eat just before we kick back in our camp chairs and watch the fireworks displays all around the town, right from our front yard?

It’s July Fourth food fireworks, simple but drool worthy…

July Fourth Food Fireworks Menu

Smoked Ribs and Chicken
Potato Salad
Corn on the Cob
Watermelon

Homemade Ice Cream*
Caramel Topping, Chocolate Topping
Strawberries and Blueberries

Can you get any simpler than that?

If you were to get a taste of any of these on your plate tonight, you might think the fireworks was angels welcoming you to heaven.

My son is the Green Egg Super Chef in charge of the smoking and grilling, so we won’t go there.  His secrets remain his own.

My city DIL’s Potato Salad is the special family recipe I will share with you, because I love you, and sharing food and recipes is a way to serve my country.  Small things, people.

Jayne’s Potato Salad

This is the spud salad famous in our circles. When potato salad’s on the menu, Jayne makes it. This is my best effort to help you match her skills. I’ve never reached the peak yet.

Print Recipe

Jayne’s Potato Salad

This recipe first showed up in our family recipe book, "I'm Thinking Jam." But when my daughter-in-law Jayne follows a recipe, it becomes her own, every time.

Ingredients

• 6 potatoes baked in skin, cooled, cubed and salted
• 6 hard boiled eggs sliced or cubed
• 1 cup cheese cubed
• 1 cup celery chunked
• 6 green onions diced
• 1 cup crunchy bacon pieces
• 6 radishes sliced

Dressing

• 2 cups mayonnaise
• 1 tsp prepared mustard
• 1/2 tsp dry mustard
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups sour cream
• pepper to taste
• 1/2 tsp celery seed
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 1/2 cup sugar

Instructions

• Mix the dressing ingredients. I should give you a head's up that Jayne may or may not use fancy mustard, flavored vinegar and/or Tony's Cajun salt. Among other surprises that she pulls out of her chef's hat. But even if you follow the recipe as is, it will be delicious, because my niece Lindsey chose it for the family cookbook.
• Pour the dressing over the huge bowl of salad ingredients and stir gently. Let it mingle and grow flavor for a few hours in the refrigerator.

*Find the Homemade Ice Cream Recipe here.

Corn on the Cob Secret

You may have seen this “secret” all over the internet, but today, I give you my word

as a service to our country

that this is not fake news. It is one of the fastest, non-foodie friendly, most flavorful ways of cooking corn on the cob.

Believe it.

Our neighbor lady, who doesn’t live next to us, but comes here almost every day to garden and water her trees, gave us 6 precious ears of corn from her patch.

And Kim found this method of cooking corn from the friends she visited last week in North Carolina.

I will never go back.

1. Place ear of corn, husk, silk and all, in the microwave.
2. Cook on high for 3 minutes.
3. Remove from microwave with paper towel or pot holder because it will be hot.
4. Place on cutting board and slice one inch off the stem end of the cob.
5. Pull the husk off, and with just a little squirming and muttering while juggling the steaming cob, you will have the cleanest corn on the cob ready to eat in a New York minute. The silk tassel just slides off like, well, silk.
6. Butter up. Season, salt and pepper. Eat. Gnaw.  Wipe corn juice off your chin.  The flavor fireworks will explode your taste buds.

Enjoy the July Fourth Food fireworks.