July 4

We invited several close friends over to celebrate July 4 and swim.  Here is the menu, everyone gets bonus points if they bring something red, white, and blue.

Appetizers:  2 families are brining appetizers

Meal:  Hamburgers, corn with herb butter, and side from another family, watermelon

Dessert:  Marshmallow Sparklers, firecracker cookies, red, white, and blue strawberries, and smores bars

Drinks:  Lemonade, Tea, Strawberry margaritas

Love these "firecracker bites" from Hoosier Homemade

Photo from Hoosier Homemade

Ava and I will make these red, white, and blue strawberries from Baking Bits

Photo from Baking Bits

Marshmallow pops from Living Locurto

Picture from Living Locurto

Going to try this Smores bar recipe from AllRecipes.com.  I have a coupon for buy marshmallows get free hershey bars and graham crackers!  Great deal!

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/smores-2/detail.aspx

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, melted
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 3 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 3 cups miniature marshmallows

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish.
2. In a medium bowl, combine butter, sugar and graham cracker crumbs until well coated. Press half of crumb mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Top with the chocolate chips, then the marshmallows. Sprinkle the remaining graham cracker mixture over the marshmallows and press down with a spatula.
3. Bake in preheated oven 10 minutes, until marshmallows are melted. Cool completely before cutting into squares.