It’s Chris’ birthday tomorrow, so we’ve been
celebrating this weekend. Yesterday, I hosted a BBQ party at our house. I spent
a couple weeks thinking about what food we’d have, picking up some party
supplies, and then Friday and Saturday setting up and cooking before the party
started. We had gorgeous weather and it was a fun day. We had a great group
come out for the afternoon, most of them Chris’ friends from work.
Chris was surprised over a couple things. The
first was when I gave him a pack of craft beer and a galvanized steel beverage
tub from my parents to kick off the party. Then, friends started trickling in,
each armed with a pack of craft or microbrew beer. I had hatched the plan to
cook up all of the food but to see if everyone would be willing to bring a pack
of craft beer and set the party up as sort of a beer tasting. To my surprise, there
weren’t even any duplicate choices, which was awesome. We had a whole variety
of different beers and everyone was opening drinks to share and trying
different ones. Finally, Chris was ecstatic to find that the main dish on the
menu was Dreamland BBQ that his
parents and I had gone in on together and I had shipped up from Dreamland BBQ in Alabama (and that I successfully
hid in the back of the fridge) for the event.
Aside from those surprises, I set up the basement
with different food tables, pulled out all of my platters and serving dishes,
and had picked up fun red dinner plates and cute little dessert plates with a
cookout design. I spruced up the basement with painted daisies and a couple
vases of bright yellow bursting sunflowers. Chris pulled out the extra chairs
and set up the “redneck golf” or “ladder toss” to play.
Of course we had other dishes to go along with
the Dreamland pulled pork, homestyle bread, and extra sauce. I picked up
Wegman’s coleslaw, Bush’s baked beans, chips and French onion dip, and ranch
dip and selections for a veggie tray. I sliced up a lemon, orange, and a
cucumber to perk up a pitcher of water. Then, most of Friday and Saturday
morning were spent making the following menu:
- Crockpot macaroni and cheese
- Deviled eggs
- Chocolate chip cookies
- Strawberry-rhubarb hand pies
- Homemade vanilla ice cream
Everything turned out really well, but I think my
favorite experiment was the choice to make the homemade vanilla ice cream. That
was because I served it to make chocolate stout beer floats. I will definitely
make them again. A Rogue chocolate stout was recommended to me at Total Wine
beverage store, and sure enough, a scoop of vanilla ice cream topped by a pour
of the chocolate stout was great. It bubbled all up like the coke in a coke
float, had the unique, rich, chocolately undertones of the stout but took on
the creaminess of the melting ice cream.
Want this treat for yourself? Check out Rogue chocolate stout
from the Oregon brewery and churn up the vanilla ice cream below.
Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk
¾ cup granulated sugar
pinch of salt
2 cups heavy cream
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
Directions:
Blend together the milk, sugar, and salt with a
whisk or mixer until the sugar has dissolved. Stir in the vanilla and cream.
Let the mixture steep for at least 2-3 hours or overnight. Mix according to your
ice cream maker’s directions. In my Cuisinart maker, once I had turned on the
ice cream maker and poured in the cream base, it took about 20 minutes to
thicken. Then I left it to freeze up for a few hours into the hard ice cream
texture that I wanted.
