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| Flag cake is easy to make: white or chocolate cake mix, Cool Whip or whipped cream, sliced strawberries and blueberries. My small hand skills are limited, but the grand kids don’t notice the imperfections. |
How odd it is. Our last 4th of July. It dawned on me today that many holidays we celebrate here in the US, won’t be celebrated abroad. Duh! No 4th of July. No Labor Day. No Thanksgiving. No President’s Day. No Memorial Day.
Thanksgiving cooking was tough last year. I prepared an entirely gluten free meal including GF Coconut Flour Biscuits, GF Homemade Croutons to make GF Turkey Dressing, GF Almond Flour Gravy and GF Nut Crust for the sugar free GF pumpkin pies. (We had to ditch the traditional green bean casserole. There’s no good substitute for those canned onion rings!)
Before Thanksgiving, I’ll post some of these recipes for anyone who may be interested. Tom didn’t love everything. He has picky taste buds.. I can eat my shoe, enjoy the taste and digest it with nary a belch. Not picky. I ate all the leftover GF items for days while Tom nibbled on the turkey and the GF broccoli salad. After the fourth pumpkin pie, I was done. We won’t miss the Thanksgiving meal so much.
Now, as the 4th of July approaches, the plans and menu are in place. Here’s the menu. Recipes follow for the starred items.
Luckily for both Tom and I, most of these recipes are gluten free, except for the cake and cornbread. Also, we gave up corn and all its products last August after reading the book, Wheat Belly by Dr, William Davis to discover the way corn has been genetically manipulated to increase production, stripped of nutrients and loaded with chemicals. That was a tough one to leave behind.
Our friends and family still eat corn, except for daughter Tammy and her family. (The rest of them have grown bored with my endless food warnings soapbox so I finally stepped down, preaching only to dear Tom who acts like he’s listening).The salsa recipe is easy to make and often a crowd favorite. Here it is:
Jess’s Salsa
2 – 28 oz. cans of Italian style whole tomatoes, save juice, chop tomatoes (I used to use fresh tomatoes, but unless they are home grown, generally those at the grocery store are relatively tasteless)
1 large onion (Vidalia is available now)
2 jalapeño peppers or a small can of diced hot jalapenos
3 cloves fresh garlic
4 T red wine vinegarAdd juice from cans
Add salt and pepper
Add juice from one large lime or two small. Refrigerate overnight for best flavor. Keep chilled in jars for one week in the refrigerator.
She didn’t give me the recipe until I was 30 years old, old enough to keep the “family secret recipe.” She made me promise not to give anyone the recipe in “her lifetime.”
Cornbread Recipe
1 cup sugar
Mix well
Add:
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 stick melted butter (1/2 cup)
Pour into a 9” baking pan
Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until done when a toothpick is inserted.
Enjoy!
We’ll take out our red, white and blue hats, leis, tee shirts and serving pieces. We’ll celebrate the 4th of July with the same fervor we have each year, watching the boat parade at 7 PM, tossing water balloons, making giant bubbles and sitting at the end of our dock at dark to watch the head turning five fireworks displays all at once. Bittersweet!