Memorial Weekend & The Eats

**Edited to add links to the recipes, sorry I forgot the first time!**

Memorial weekend is usually our first family BBQ of the summer. I wanted to kick it off in style so I put a LOT of work into making a nice meal for my family. I wish my mom could have been here to enjoy it. Our BBQ's the last couple of years were a highlight for her. She always enjoyed herself so much.

The first thing I made was the dessert, a couple of days ahead of time. I made a chocolate graham cracker pie crust from scratch :)

 

The pie then has two layers of vanilla frozen yogurt (I used Blue Bunny Vanilla Bean frozen yogurt), caramel ice cream topping and heath bar chunks.

Then you throw it in the freezer and bring it out to thaw 15 mins before eating. This was delicious and everybody loved it. Yum! Here is the recipe: Caramel Toffee Ice Cream Pie

The next thing I worked on making were the Honey-Glazed Chicken Kabobs. I cut up the chicken & veggies ahead of time and marinated the chicken for a day. I assemble them into kabobs the day before the BBQ.

These grilled up so tasty and were also a big hit! I could only eat one though.

Also on the grill, in tin foil, is Italian Grilled Corn.. which I also prepared ahead of time. It's so delicious!

I had also made appetizers: Greek Deli Kabobs. I had chopped up the broccoli and cheese ahead of time. On the morning of, I chopped up the red peppers and folded the salami, then placed it all in a bag and added the dressing to marinate for 4 hours:

After the 4 hours, I assembled them into kabobs. I had been reaching into the bag but quickly learned that was inefficient and messy, so I dumped everything into a bowl first and then started making them.

The result:

I ended up with 20 of these. We ate some at our family BBQ and I took more to a potluck the following day and they disappeared quick. Really tasty!

Everyone showed a LOT of excitement over the meal ;)

A nice family photo:

And one of Ian & me:

So, I had a potluck the next day I also prepared things for. The host was making echiladas, so I made Crazy Corn Casserole (with black beans added). Unfortunately it didn't turn out as flavorful as it has in the past. But it was still ok.

I also made these fun & festive red, white & blue Pretzel Sparklers. I made the the day before and thank goodness, because it took like 6 hours for the chocolate to firm up completely!

I put them in this glass cookie jar to serve them at the potluck:

The potluck was fun. It was nice to meet some new people, chat, enjoy some food etc. :) Here's a pic from the get together:

The end!

PS I did two new posts in the same day, there is another new post below.