Planning BBQs

I really like it when everything goes according to plan.  Hello! This might be a slight understatement.  We always have grand plans for summer BBQs and having friends over and then it's September and we realized we never made time for it.  But we invited friends over for  this past Sunday afternoon/evening for a BBQ before we left for the beach.  And then we got a little bit overbooked.  Sunday morning swim lessons, Noah's bestie's 2nd birthday party at 3.  Oops! But we were not canceling.

By Friday we still didn't even have our BBQ menu.  This is not how I usually operate but I'm trying to be a little more ... laid back (which totally stresses me out by the way).  But actually it's really hard to come up with a menu when everyone's just had the cookout of their lives on July 4th.  Not to mention it was only about 100 degrees here.  

Saturday we shopped for our ingredients and that night I started prepping, chopping, and baking.  I've found that the key to being stress free a little less stressed on party day is to do almost everything the day before. I chop all the ingredients and put them in baggies according to what needs to be cooked together. I actually knew the dessert before I knew anything else, which is usually the case with me.  I've had this recipe in my back pocket for a while and if you have ever visited Pinterest then chances are you do too.  Hamburger Cupcakes!  The perfect way to get that BBQ feel without actually cooking burgers.

When I started preheating the oven I realized it was the first time using it since 'the incident.'  We left for the beach on a Saturday after lunch. So that Friday for dinner I was going to 'cook' a frozen (gasp in horror it was not homemade) lasagna.  After 40 minutes in the oven I pulled it out and the tray collapsed. The cooked lasagna fell back into the hot oven and dripped into the drawer below and  ANNOYING and grossly disgustingly dirty cheesy mess everywhere.  Plus now what the F do we eat for dinner? I'd already started getting rid of everything we had in preparation for our vacation.  So then I had to spend the evening cleaning the oven (everything going according to plans right there, huh?) So long story short, the oven was clean but full of gray soot incinerated lasagna.  Anyways I hope you enjoyed that.

I looked at a couple different sites for these Hamburger Cupcakes; there's not really a recipe. I first saw them on my real life friend Sarah's blog- Sarah Celiac and then took some inspiration from The Idea Room too.

The cupcakes are so easy to make.  Make yellow cake cupcakes, make brownies, dye some coconut green for lettuce, and then make mustard and ketchup icing.  Well I guess that's where it got hard. 

How in the world do you make red icing?  Seriously, I need to know.  And actually I really do need to know before Noah's birthday so tell me!  This ketchup icing turned purple!  I got No Taste Red Wilton's dye (because let's face it Christmas Red tastes like ass) but it still turned my white icing pink.  So I added coco powder and then it was purple.  Luckily I had some backup icing and just went with pink ketchup instead of purple.

When I wasn't doing a red dye science experiment I was separating sprinkles for the 'buns.'  I washed my hands- don't worry!  This took forever! And it's like picking blueberries.  You feel like you've been doing it forever and then you look at your pile and you have 10.

  

Besides the icing issue, this really went according to plan.  I set up a little assembly line and cut my yellow cupcakes in half for the top and bottom buns.  I cut out brownies into circles (or sorta circles).  Put mustard on the tops, ketchup on the bottoms; sprinkled lettuce on the tops, and the brownie beef on the bottoms.  Mashed the top and bottom together and stuck a toothpick in them.  The brownie middle is YUMMY!

I was really pleased with our final menu and how everything went.  Especially with our busy schedule on Sunday.  We literally arrived home about 10-12 minutes before our guests.  When in doubt, Barefoot Contessa always has the answer! 

Apps: 

Cut up Pink Lady Apples, Irish Cheddar Cheese & Crackers.

Main Dish off the grill:

Grilled Tuna and Chicken Orange Ginger Sandwiches

We grilled both tuna and chicken with the same marinade.  Topped them off with cucumbers, tomato, and a orange ginger mayo.  And yummy Harris Teeter kaiser rolls.

Sides:
Ina Garten's Roasted Broccoli - I omitted the Parmesan; I'm actually allergic or intolerant or something.  I only used lemon to top- no pine nuts either. 

Ina Garten's Confetti Corn

This was a good alternative to grilling corn on the cob.  This corn is good!

Noah ate everything, which is always the measure and we even ate it again for lunch today.  Yeah for everything actually going according to plan!  Either I'm getting better at this or maybe being more laid back is actually the key?