Let Your Food Add to the Fun: Red, White, and Blue Recipes for the Fourth
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Presented by Carabelle’s Eats and Treats, where everything's from scratch with a small batch. It’s time to be the host with the most, with Carabelle’s help or on your own!
(NATIONAL) A Fourth of July gathering is the classic summer event – food, fun, and friends. This year, treat your guests to some festive new dishes highlighting the red, white, and blue we all associate with this special holiday.
For a fun, easy dessert that you can pair with any main dish, try these cutout star cookies. The recipe has been tested to ensure that the cookies will hold their shape during baking, keeping those stars crisp and clean! Look for star-shaped sprinkles at your local grocery store, or opt for plain red, white, and blue in a color block or alternating pattern. These cookies would also be perfect served alongside homemade vanilla, strawberry, or blueberry ice cream.
A perfect appetizer for any gathering, chips and dip are essential for your summer party. Make the offering match your patriotic theme by serving blue corn chips alongside roasted red pepper and creamy lime dips (bonus points for serving the dips in matching-colored bowls!). You can easily adjust the flavor and spice level of the red pepper sauce by choosing varieties of chiles that you love.
Berries and Mascarpone Parfait
One of the easiest ways to incorporate red and blue into your festive food is with berries; they’re vibrant, the perfect colors, and ripe at just the right time! For an elegant and simple dessert or appetizer, serve your guests a berry and mascarpone parfait. The mascarpone gives a wonderful acidity and hint of tartness that mixes perfectly with a bit of powdered sugar to form a decadent cream. Topped with fresh berries, this combination is the perfect summer dessert. You can prepare individual servings ahead of time and keep them in the refrigerator, or put out the ingredients and let your guests create their own parfaits! You can even put out extra topping choices like nuts, fresh mint, and mini chocolate chips.
No barbeque is complete without a burger (or, in this case, a mini burger). These delicious sliders are perfect for afternoon gatherings during the summer – they’re easy to make and leave plenty of room for all of the other great food! This recipe might seem like a risk – pairing a burger, bleu cheese, and strawberries? But this risk will pay off. The bleu cheese dressing doubles as the white and “blue” part of this dish, so it’s already working overtime; the sweetness of the strawberry paired with the bleu cheese is what really puts this dish over the top, though. Your guests will thank you for introducing such a clever idea, so make sure to prep a double batch.
Summer picnics and potato salad – a classic combination. Luckily, it’s easy to add a patriotic twist to this traditional dish by using a mix of white and blue/purple potatoes along with roasted red peppers. The zesty lemon dressing makes this potato salad lighter than some, so it’s a good side dish to balance heavier meal items like your main dish. To make preparation even easier, you can buy a jar of roasted red peppers at the store rather than making your own.
For the ultimate in entertaining, combine two trends for your party: holiday-themed food and cheese boards. This American flag design is perfect for an appetizer while also serving as a stunning centerpiece as your guests arrive. Use various red and white meats, fruits, vegetables, and cheeses to create the stripes, then top a rectangle of blueberries with mini white cheese stars (grab a star cutter here). This tray is an easy way to make a big statement!
Whether your gathering is small or large this year, these red, white, and blue foods will help make it a memorable one!
The Entertainer is presented by Carabelle’s Eats and Treats, food service dedicated to encouraging, inspiring, and strengthening women who have experienced loss to pursue holistic health through the culinary arts, while providing premier quality baked goods and catering services to the community.
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