Memorial Day Weekend

*information for this post was in part supplied by Hormel Foods through their Hormel Extended Family Blogger program. No compensation was received for this post.

Memorial Day weekend was always a weekend of parades, picnics, the top 500 on the radio (in honor of the Indy 500) and the indicator that school would soon be out. I can remember sitting at my stereo with my fingers ready on my tape deck in hopes of catching my favorite song and recording it - of course, there was always that risk that the dj would talk over part of the song...but at least I had the song captured. It really is funny to think about now. I can remember fast forwarding and rewinding through those random radio tapes to find the right song. Then, I got a new stereo that had two tape decks and then (wow!) I could make a mix tape of the best of what I captured from the radio. That way, I could take my walkman and listen to my tape while I was out and about. Ah, but I digress...

Memorial Day has changed for me over the years. Now I can choose to buy a song or an album online and not worry about 'catching' my favorite one on the radio, besides which the radio stations I listen to featured a flashback to the 80s weekend this year. We only go to the parade if the kids are marching in it with one of their teams or scouts. We always loved to host a picnic, but with a busy baseball tournament weekend, we can't 'commit' to a time for a picnic because the schedule comes out a few days ahead for pool play and the playoff brackets aren't determined until the night before play and you play until you lose (not necessarily consecutive games, but close enough that coming home isn't always an option). And, when we are invited to a picnic, there isn't as much time to plan.

As much as I have always been a fan of homemade, there are times like this where convenience rules.

Want to bring a quick and easy main dish? Simply prep a couple packs of hot dogs in water in a standard crock pot. Prepare a can of Hormel Chili No Beans in a small crock pot (I have one of those dip warmers that works perfect). Grab a couple bags of buns and some shredded cheese. Voila! You have tasty and easy, Coney Dogs. (you can find a 'recipe' for chili dogs and more on their webpage.)

For a quick bleacher snack, grab a Hormel Gatherings Party Tray. We always bring a cooler with us to the game and the snack pack size gives us an option for a snack that is more than just chips or candy (which seems to be what my kids want to buy at the concession stand) and one that is easy to share with fellow fans. When ready to enjoy and share, open the crackers, cheese and pepperoni and place into the tray and serve. You can even keep the lid in place to help prevent the baseball field from becoming part of your snack - have you seen the amount of dust that the kids kick up when they slide into the plate? Of course, the Hormel Gatherings Party Tray is also great for an impromptu post game gathering to celebrate too. When the kids are done playing, they are usually hungry and a quick picnic or evening gathering is a high potential.

Of course, if you have time for a traditional picnic, that doesn't mean that you want to spend your time in the kitchen prepping, so I still recommend a coney dogs and cheese trays.

We had fun at our tournament this year. We went 1-1-1 in the tournament; even though we should have done better, the boys still enjoyed it. My daughter had a soccer game and the team won. We even found time to picnic at a friend's house on Monday.

How did you spend your Memorial Day?

No compensation was received for this post. All opinions expressed are mine or those of my family. I am completing this post as a participant in the Hormel Foods Extended Family Blogger program. Hormel Foods provided some product and some of the information for this post.

Weekend Barbeque Challenge

I mentioned a few weeks back about how I love grilling out in the summer. Well, this month's Hormel Foods Extended Family Blogger Program event was to host a Weekend Barbeque with friends. The challenge - come up with a meal plan that uses three different Hormel Food products as ingredients.

I love a challenge...especially when it involves food!

We had some friends coming over for game night, so we invited them all to come over early for dinner. I started my quest by checking out HormelFoods.com to see all of the brands that they offer. I did some exploration on their site looking for recipes that I could include, but then I also stopped by AllRecipes.com for some inspiration. I love that I can enter ingredients and categories to search. I quickly came up with ideas for the first few courses and struggled with dessert. I had made the cinnamon tortillas with fruit salsa before, but wanted something more substantial for dessert. After gaining ideas, I took creative license on a few ideas and made them my own.

We started our meal with a bit of an appetizer - Chips and Dip. I started with the Chile Ole Dip recipe on Hormel and tweaked it a bit. You can see my version of the Chili Cheese Dip recipe here. I sprinkled it with a little bit of shredded cheese at one point too. It was a huge hit - I really enjoyed it, ate way too much dip but it was very tasty.

Then, for our main meal, I made a salad and offered crumbled Hormel Microwave Ready Bacon on the side as a topping for the salad. I served it with the Poppy Seed Dressing that I normally have on Spinach Salad and Feta Cheese (so pretty much my Spinach Salad with a substitution of Romaine for Spinach).

We had Turkey Burgers on the grill, using Jennie-O Ground Turkey as our base. We are very used to making the frozen pre-made patties. We had issues with the burgers starting to fall apart when we were first cooking them. They turned out fine, but we decided next time we would grill them on a cedar plank instead of directly on the grill, in hopes that we don't have as many challenges. No real recipe here, I added an egg, some bread crumbs, some barbecue sauce and some seasoning. They seemed to form nicely in patties. They may not have been pretty, but they were tasty! (After reading some posts online about burgers falling apart, many people noted that you shouldn't turn them too frequently or pushing down with a spatula, I know my grill master was pushing down on them, so maybe that is the solution!) We also had some macaroni salad as a side dish.

Then, came dessert. I wasn't sure how to take a line up of mostly savory foods and create a desert. It felt a little like being on Chopped. I decided that using ChiChi's Tortillas would be the best route to making a dessert. In searching on AllRecipes.com I came across an assortment of "enchiladas" and "chimichangas" filled with fruit. That was all the inspiration I needed. I had some apples in my refrigerator that I needed to use up and had been wanting to try making some spiced apples, so I went the route of Apple Enchiladas. I prepared spiced apples, rolled them in tortillas, topped with the remaining sauce and baked. They were very yummy. You can see my recipe here.

After dinner, even more friends showed up and after getting the kids settled in for the night, we went downstairs and played a few games. It was a wonderful evening - good food, good friends, good times.

No compensation was received for this post. All opinions expressed in this post are mine or that of my family. I am currently a member of the Hormel Foods Extended Family Blogger Program. Each post written for this role, serves as an entry into a grand prize giveaway. Hormel provides materials and resources to assist me with my posts.