4th Feast

Last year Dave and I had no one to celebrate 4th of July with...but we had all this delicious food in mind: firecracker shrimp, grilled veggie kebabs, steak, jalapeño poppers wrapped in bacon, and shortcake for dessert. So we cooked it anyway and totally enjoyed ourselves.

A few weeks ago we realized that no one had invited us to any sort of Independence Day parties. We were a little bummed, thinking we were losers. We decided we were going to make the same ridiculous amount of food as we had the last year, since it was so scrumptious. Dave suggested that I email some Davis friends, just to see if they wanted to come. Turns out there were a LOT of folks who had no other plans, either. We ended up with 15 adults and 3 babies over last night for our second annual 4th Feast!

Before the party we prepped the food, went to our friend's house to take care of their kitty while they are out of town, and went swimming at the local pool. Eddie didn't take more than a 15 minute nap in the car after swimming so by the time 8pm rolled around (his normal bedtime) he was falling apart. About 8:45pm we loaded him into the double stroller along with three giant blankets (and the platter of deviled eggs that I'd accidentally left in the fridge up until that point) and walked to the edge of town to see the fireworks. Eddie screamed for about 5 minutes and then promptly passed out. He stayed asleep until about 9:30 during the fireworks. It was super cute to see his mesmerized face during the lights show.

As is always the case with our dinner parties, I was too busy chitchatting and eating to take any pictures. So here's the general idea: we ran out of normal Correll dishes so we had to also use our china plates...we also ran out of forks. In addition to all the food we'd prepared, nearly everyone brought something to share--fruit salad with lime/pepper seasoning, green salad, cupcakes, baked brie, pasta salad, etc. People were scattered all over the house to eat...some outside on the patio, some in the living room, and some in the dining room.

While I didn't get any pictures yesterday, here's a photo of the leftovers Dave and I got to eat for lunch today (and there's sooooooooo much more to chose from in the fridge!):

That cake is a strawberry shortcake cake and was phenomenal--definitely tied for my favorite with plum upsidedown cake. It is deceptively heavy because the cake is soaked with berry juices. One recipe yielded 2 heart-shaped pans that I then cut in half. I also made an extra batch of frosting for it since a little extra frosting never hurt anyone.

I completely forgot that my friend John can't have gluten so he couldn't eat any of it. Since I have tons of strawberries left I am going to make him a gluten free version this week (I made a gluten free huckleberry cake a couple of years ago and the actual cake was pretty short-cakey so I think it'd be hefty enough to stand up to the berry juices.)

I hope everyone had a great holiday with their families and friends like we did!