Fourth of July is around the corner. If you are having a gathering, or just cooking for your family, these recipes are easy and fun to make so you can have time to enjoy the festivities yourself. Most of them can be done, or mostly prepped, a day or two before…so you are not exhausted the day off.
Try my easy and tender pork ribs, mom’s full of flavor baked beans, luscious macaroni salad, Greek village salad, and/or cherry pineapple dump cake served with vanilla ice cream. For some color and fun, try my red, white, and blue dipped pretzel rods, festive maraschino cherries (spiked or non-spiked 🙂 ) , and festive bark. All these recipes are easy to put together.
BBQ Pork Ribs
These BBQ pork ribs are not only easy to make but they are also tender and fall off the bone. They can be started a couple of days in advance, if needed. I usually cook the ribs in the oven the evening before, and then throw them on the grill, with my favorite sauce, to warm them up and give them a nice charred color right before it’s time to eat and enjoy!
Mom’s Baked Beans
My mother was the best cook. Even though her specialty was Greek dishes (after all she was Greek), she was great at making any type of dish taste good. Mom’s baked beans is a version of her recipe that I learned as I watched her make it. As with all the other recipes on this post, these beans are so easy to make. It uses canned baked beans, onions, ketchup, and some bacon and brown sugar to round out the flavors. You just throw all the ingredients together and bake them. You can even prep them the day before, or even cook them and just heat them up the day of. If you don’t want to start your oven then you can slow simmer everything in a pot, although I like when I can bake something because you put it in and forget about it until the timer rings.
Macaroni Salad
I have made this macaroni salad for as long as I can remember. Always a favorite of my sister and my husband…and I can eat the whole bowl myself, if I wasn’t carb conscious! It is so simple to throw together and has the perfect touch of sweetness and savory. It is actually better if you make it one or two days in advance. It allows all the flavors to meld together perfectly.
Greek Horiatiki Salata
This traditional Greek village salad is re-imagined into a sliced and layered version with the addition of pepperoncini’s. Just as delicious as the original version but plated differently. In the final picture below, I have pre-mixed the dressing, per the recipe (olive oil, vinegar, oregano, salt and pepper), and shaken it well to create an emulsion. Drizzle over the salad when you are ready to serve.
Cherry Pineapple Dump Cake
This cherry pineapple dump cake has to be one of the easiest desserts to throw together. It’s a dump and bake type of dessert and the cherry and pineapple flavors are wonderful together. You can substitute the cherry and pineapple for your favorite fruit combinations, just make sure there is some liquid in there to offset the pineapple juice. Add a scoop, or two, of vanilla ice cream and Oh MY GOSH. Serve it on a bluish plate and you have a red, white, and blue theme!
Festive Red, White, & Blue Dipped Pretzel Rods, Maraschino Cherries, and Bark
Do you want to add some festivity to your gathering? Well, these red, white, and blue festive treats for your table will do it. Chocolate dipped pretzel rods, maraschino cherries, and bark are fun to make and add a cute touch to your spread. The pretzels resemble big red, white, and blue firecrackers, but they taste much better…ha, ha (please don’t try a real firecracker!).
The maraschino cherries are a favorite with kids and adults a like. If you are making the adult version, make sure to mark them “adult only” (and keep an eye on them), we wouldn’t want any kids to eat those and get tipsy.
The bark was a compilation of leftover ingredients from the pretzels and cherries. Anyone who knows me knows that I do not like wasting stuff…so I made it into a bark. You can just as easily add some chopped nuts to it too, so the end result doesn’t taste as sweet. I didn’t think of it at the time, but some crushed pretzel pieces would have been good, to bring that sweet and salty taste to play.
