Fun Summer Refreshments

I had a meeting at my house last night and wanted to have some fun refreshments because who doesn't like to eat, right??  I always have a million ideas for what to serve and the problem always comes in trying to narrow down the choices and remembering to not make enough to serve an army because the leftovers have to be eaten :)

Since it's hot and muggy, I didn't want to serve anything too overly heavy.  I thought first about cool drinks and decided on making fresh-squeezed lemonade. Doesn't that look good???

Lemonade is one of the easiest things to make but people always just rave about it and swear that theirs never turns out!  Take 1 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice and mix it with 1 cup of sugar.  Stir completely until all the sugar is dissolved (it will be thick).  Add 5 cups of pure water, stir and chill.  That's it! Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy....

I love tuna salad on a hot day, so I decided to serve that!  I didn't want to make little sandwiches with it because the bread gets soggy, and who wants that?? So, I washed 2 large cucumbers really well so I could leave the skin on them.  Then, I cut them into about 1/2 inch hunks.  I used a melon baller to make a nice round hole in the center (don't go all the way through because you want it to be like a little bowl) and filled it with tuna salad.  Big hit!  Just a note:  DO NOT make these to take to an outdoor picnic!  You'll end up giving everybody salmonella and it's never good to be the chick who poisoned your friends, neighbors, or co-workers at a picnic!  Since I was serving inside my air conditioned house, I knew it would be all right :)

I thought a nice fruit salad would definitely be in order so I just threw together some strawberries, cantaloupe, and watermelon that I had in my fridge.  It needed something, so I picked a nice hunk of basil from my garden and added it for color.  It added a little herby flavor to the fruit also because I put it in there and let it sit in the fridge for about an hour with the basil--nice!  (More on basil to come in another post).

A cheese plate is always a nice addition, don't you think?  I used a sharp yellow cheddar, a smoked gouda, and an aged white English cheddar to make a nice combo.  I really think that I'm part mouse!!  I could eat cheese anytime, anywhere on anything!  Another great thing about cheese--if you have problems with popping awake in the middle of the night, especially between 1 and 3 AM, you can eat a piece or two of cheese before you go to bed and it helps to normalize your sleep and keep you from waking up!  It works,really!

I love crunchy kinds of things so I put out this 3-some.  The pretzels are Glutino's brand gluten-free pretzels and they're fabulous!!  I absolutely adore them!!  I serve them all the time and no one ever realizes that they're gluten-free.  I added some peanuts for flavor and the olives in the middle are from my private stash of Manzanilla olives from when we lived in Spain.  They're marvelous!!  I'm just about out, so I have to contact friends in Spain to send me some more.  I haven't been able to find the same ones anywhere here in the States and I'm not sure I can do without them....

And, now, the big finale--the dessert!!  I don't think I'm capable of serving food without a dessert; it's just not in my DNA.  I wanted something new and different so I went WAY out on a limb and broke the number one rule of entertaining by creating a new dessert to serve to guests before I'd tried it myself!  Thankfully, it was a huge success!  I call these Gooey Bars...not very original, I know, but that's exactly what they are :)  Here's the recipe:

1 Betty Crocker GF yellow cake mix
2 eggs
5 T. melted butter
4 oz softened cream cheese
2 cups powdered sugar
splash of Mexican vanilla
1 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Spray an 8 X 8 inch square baking pan.  In a mixing bowl, combine cake mix,  1 egg and the melted butter until crumbly.  Press firmly into the baking pan to make a crust.  Sprinkle chocolate chips over crust.  In mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla for about 2 minutes or until completely smooth.  Pour over chips and spread, if necessary, to even.  Bake for about 50 minutes or until top is completely golden brown.  Cool completely.  Cut into bars.  Makes 12-16 bars.

These were a huge hit with my guests and more importantly, my husband!  If you're going to make these with a non-GF cake mix, you need to double everything (except the cake mix--you only need 1) and use a 9 X 13 inch pan to bake them in. ( This is because GF cake mixes are smaller by half than a regular cake mix).

I decided to serve these on my cake pedestal even though they weren't round because I just liked the idea of "Gooey bars under glass."

So, there you have it!  My meeting was a big success, the refreshments were, I must say, fabulous, and life is good :)

A closing thought:  Robert Redford once said, "Health food may be good for the conscience but Oreos taste a hell of a lot better!"  I tend to agree but I've learned that I can make healthy food that tastes good, too....although there's nothing healthy about those Gooey bars...