Green Bean Salad

Over the past few weeks I met Brandon and his partner, Chad, taking the dogs to the dog park.  Their dog, Lucy, plays well with Lightning and Jack and Gizmo so we exchanged phone numbers with the promise to set up future play dates for them.  At the end of our latest play date, they invited me to a BBQ at their house for the 4th of July.  It was a small, but fun, get together with them, Brandon's sister and her husband and daughter and another gentlemen who rents a room in their house.  I haven't laughed so much in a long time!!  It was awesome!

One of the salads was this amazing marinated green bean concoction that made my tastebuds feel like they'd been transported directly to Heaven.  So delicious!

And different.  And refreshing.

I kept going back for just one more little taste so I could figure out how to make it!

This recipe may be just a little frustrating to anyone who's looking for precise measurements and cook times but it's salad and the ingredients are subjective.  For example, I like onions and would add them generously but after bell peppers made their choice to do me bad I don't like them so much and would choose to skimp on them.  You might feel just the opposite so your salad would happily have more peppers and less onion than mine.  And that's perfectly wonderful!

Green Bean Salad

In whatever quantity is pleasing to both your eye and tastebuds toss any (or all) of the following vegetables together in a very large bowl:
Sliced onion
Rough chunks of multi-colored bell peppers
Inch cuts of celery
Thick slices of zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, cucumbers
Small button mushrooms
Match-stick cut carrots
Finely chopped fresh herbs such as dill, parsley, cilantro, rosemary, jalapeno pepper

Add double that amount of fresh green beans snapped into approximate 2-inch long pieces. The green beans are the feature ingredient, the star of the show, so you want lots of them!

You'll need enough marinade/dressing to barely submerge all of the vegetables for several hours, even overnight, prior to serving. Mix apple cider vinegar, white vinegar and sugar in a saucepan and heat until almost ready to begin boiling.  Remove from heat and stir in a bit of turmeric and a few pinches of pickling spice.  It should taste very much like the brine from bread & butter pickles.  Let cool slightly and then pour over your vegetables.  Cover the bowl and refrigerate until serving time.  Strain or use a slotted spoon to remove vegetables from marinade and put them into your serving dish.  Splash just a bit of the marinade over the top.  You still want the vegetables to be quite moist, just not drowning while out on your table...

My mouth is watering just telling you about it!  Pretty sure this salad has a destiny as a summer cookout staple in my life...

Happy Hawg

Derek and I were out and about running some errands today that took us to a couple of neighboring communities.  One of them was Hiram, GA.  And on the way back out of town, on the aptly named Hiram Acworth Highway (a mostly 2-lane road that runs between these two towns), we looked at each other and said, in chorus, "I'm starving!  Let's stop and get some lunch."

That's how we ended up parked behind a many-times remodeled old home that is painted an eye-popping shade I can only describe as Pledge-can yellow.  Emblazoned in big bright red letters across the front it says "Happy Hawg Bar-B-Q and Catering."  Sounds like a classy joint, doesn't it?

Happy Hawg is everything you'd expect of a little roadside country diner right down the vinyl red-checked tablecloths.  The food is delicious, they bring out generous portions quickly and the prices are very reasonable.  We both had their special pulled pork sandwiches.  The buns were nicely toasted and the meat was smoky and tender.  Derek got french fries with his sandwich - fresh potatoes cut into wide strips and cooked crispy and golden.  I got both onion rings and potato salad with mine.

I'm gonna have to go back to Happy Hawg a few times just to figure out what in the heck they put in that potato salad!  You could park my fat backside in a big ol' tub of that and I'd die happy thinking I was in Hawg heaven...  I'm pretty sure the potatoes were baked, not boiled, and it was tossed with bacon crumbles and a good handful of chopped green onion.  The silky dressing wasn't exactly Ranch but that's the closest description I can come up with.  So good!

As impressed as I am with the potato salad, its yumminess pales when I start thinking about the BBQ sauce I drenched my sandwich in.  There was a choice... there were 3 squeeze bottles on the table:  a tomato-based sauce like most of us think of when you hear BBQ, a vinegar and herb-based sauce and a mustard-based sauce.

I've never had a mustard-based barbecue sauce before.

Wow!

I'm still stuffed from lunch.  But that doesn't keep me from drooling at the mere thought of that sauce... Holy moly!!

After we got home, I started looking for recipes for mustard-based BBQ sauces and I found quite a few.  Most come with some caveat that they're pretty much a regional thing for the Carolinas and northern Georgia.  But don't let geography stop you... you really, really, really NEED to try this stuff at least once in your life!

This recipe from Allrecipes.com is what I'm going to use as a starting point to try to duplicate today's delectableness, except instead of black pepper I'm going to very finely mince a bit of jalapeno, red bell pepper and onion and cook them in butter (as was suggested in another recipe I read) or olive oil first.  My adjustments for the first trial:

Mustard BBQ Sauce

1 cup prepared yellow mustard
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 Tbl very finely minced jalapeno
1 Tbl very finely minced red bell pepper
2 Tbl very finely minced yellow onion
2 - 3 Tbl melted butter

Saute the jalapeno pepper, red bell pepper and onion in the butter until soft but not browned.  Add remaining ingredients and bring just to a boil whisking constantly.  Let simmer for 5 minutes.  Taste and adjust for salt, spices, sweet and tangy.  Cool to room temperature and pour into blender container.  Blend until perfectly smooth.  Makes 2 cups.

Use as a baste during final 15 minutes grilling chicken, pork or beef or as a dressing on pulled pork sandwiches or as a dip for fried chicken strips or nuggets.  Refrigerate any leftovers promptly.  Use within 2 weeks.

Strawberry Pizza & Crack Stix

The menu for yesterday's Mother's Day BBQ at our house:

Grilled Chicken Breasts

Corn on the Cob

Baked Macaroni & Cheese

Vegetable Kabobs

Crack Stix  (Recipe to follow)

Strawberry Pizza (Recipe to follow)

Chocolate Cream Pie

Ice Water, Strawberry Punch, Coca Cola

Photo credit: http://fashionablyfoodie.com/2012/02/01/keshias-kakes-on-super-bowl-desserts/
(Ours got ate so quickly I didn't get a picture of them!)

Crack Stix

You'll need:

1 loaf thin-sliced bakery white bread, crusts cut off

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup confectioners sugar

1 cup sugar

1-1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup butter, melted

Directions:

Flatten bread with a rolling-pin. In a bowl, combine cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar. In another bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon; set aside. Spread about 1 tablespoon of cheese mixture on each slice of bread. Roll up, jelly roll style. Dip in melted butter, then in cinnamon-sugar. Place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Yield: 16 roll-ups.  Delicious warm, cold or at room temperature.

Yes, as crazy as it sounds... flattered bakery white bread is THAT good!!

But I did manage to snap one of the pizza!  Yay me!!

Strawberry Pizza

You'll need:

Sugar cookie dough (Pillsbury roll, home-made, from a mix -- your choice)

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup (appx) confectioners sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Sliced fresh strawberries (I used a little less than a 1 quart package)

Red fruit glaze (little plastic tub, Danish Dessert, home-made -- your choice)

Press the sugar cookie dough onto a greased cookie sheet or pizza pan.  Bake as directed until set much the same texture as you'd like a cookie to be.  Remove from oven to cool completely.  In a medium bowl beat the cream cheese, confectioners sugar and vanilla until smooth and creamy.  Spread evenly over cookie pizza crust.  Arrange sliced strawberries over the top.  Using a pastry brush, lightly and evenly coat with fruit glaze (I had the kind in the plastic tub and used about 1/2 of it).  Chill until ready to cut then slice into pizza wedges for serving.

(Note:  I used the Pillsbury roll of sugar cookie dough this time... and I'm not sure if I over cooked it just a little or if it's not quite the perfect product for this use but it was difficult to cut.  Next time I will be using a soft sugar cookie dough.)