Homegrown Party Fare

Time to finish up blogging about my little guy's birthday menu. :)  So, for his party on the weekend I was sticking to a pretty strict budget and I thought, why fill everyone up on chips and processed food (the usual party fare) if I can use of my baking skills and the eggs provided by my chickens!  I still had to hit up the grocery store because we aren't harvesting nearly enough strawberries for the fruit salad I made or any other fruits or vegetables in a decent quantity just yet.

Menu:

Old-fashioned Lemonade
Homemade whole wheat toast with:
Egg Salad & Chicken Salad
Summer fruit and berry salad with Vanilla Yogurt
Soft Pretzel Bites with Whipped Cream Cheese

Recipes:

Old-fashioned Lemonade

10 organic lemons
2.5 cups sugar
2.5 quarts water

Peel lemons and set aside.  Place lemon peels in large bowl and toss with sugar.  Cover and let stand one hour so the sugar absorbs the oils from the peels.

Bring 2.5 quarts water to a boil.  Pour over lemon peels and sugar.  Let stand 20 minutes.

Squeeze juice from lemons and put in pitcher.  Strain out lemon peels while pouring sugar water into pitcher with lemon juice.  Stir to combine and refrigerate.  Serve over ice.

Honey Wheat Toast

Here's the post with the honey wheat bread recipe.  I made this one freestyle instead of in a loaf pan and sliced it into oval slices.  I toasted it under the broiler for a few minutes and served with egg salad and chicken salad.

Egg Salad

12 eggs
2:1 ratio horseradish mustard to mayonaise
paprika (for color)
Flat leaf parsley (snipped/chopped)
sea salt and fresh grated black pepper

Place eggs in a large pot and cover with water.  Bring to a boil.  Boil one minute then remove from burner, cover, and let sit for 10 minutes.  Place eggs in an ice water bath and then peel when cool.  Mash eggs with two forks and stir in 2 parts mustard to 1 part mayo.  Season with salt and pepper and garnish with paprika and snipped flat-leaf parsley.

Chicken Salad

2 large cans shredded chicken breast in water
1 cup halved red grapes
1 cup chopped gala apples
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
mayonaise
salt and pepper

Combine shredded chicken, grapes, apples, and walnuts in a bowl.  Add mayo to desired consistency.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Summer Fruit Salad with Vanilla Yogurt

1 Gala Apple
1 Granny Smith Apple
1 cup red grapes
1 cup blueberries
1 cup strawberries
1 cup Organic Vanilla Yogurt

(double for a crowd)

Combine all ingredients except yogurt.  Serve yogurt as a dressing/dipping sauce on the side.

This is also great with sugared walnuts (also good with brown sugar).

Soft Pretzel Bites with Whipped Cream Cheese

Simple!  Just make up this soft pretzel recipe detailed in a past post of mine.  Chop into bit size pieces and serve with whipped cream cheese!