Memorial Day Recipes {AND GIVEAWAY}

Ahhh, Memorial Day. Memorial Day is an important holiday, honoring all the courageous men and women who have lost their lives while defending our great country. We should never forget these important people, without whom who knows where we would be today. Aside from honoring the fallen, Memorial Day means something else to most Americans.

The official start of summer!

It’s been hot for months here already, so it’s hard to believe summer is only now just beginning. But it is! So bring on the BBQ’s, pool parties and summer fun! Here are some of my favorite recipes to make for your cookout this weekend.

American Flag 7-Layer Dip – Not only is this dip delicious, it’s also perfectly festive for the holiday. It can be served hot… or cold, for outdoor events.

American Flag 7-Layer Dip from jessfuel.com

Key West Grilled Chicken Skewers – Fire up those grills! These chicken skewers are much more fun than burgers and dogs, and the marinade is to die for.

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Sweet ‘n Spicy Grilled Wings – These wings are a little bit sweet, a little bit spicy, and a whole lot yummy!

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Grilled Pork Chops with Summer Salsa – Tasty grilled pork with the perfect summer accompaniment– fresh fruit salsa!

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Honey Dijon Potato Salad – This mayo-free side is perfect for warm weather!

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Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad – One of my all time FAVORITE cookout side dishes!

Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad // by Flying on Jess Fuel

Revolutionary Berries – Get festive with these easy but impressive patriotic treats.

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S’mores Brownies – Does anything say summer more than the flavors of s’mores? The brownie version makes them even easier to eat!

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So there you have it– you can’t possibly have a bad weekend with all of that delicious food.

Want to make your weekend even sweeter? Here’s your chance!

I am partnering with Cookie Gift Baskets to give away two birthday cookie arrangements.

cookie_birthday_giveaway

Cookie Gift Baskets sells tons of delicious, mouthwatering treats that you can send to friends and family on their special days. Way better than flowers, right? Here’s your chance to win some cookies!

Use the rafflecopter widget below to enter the contest. To enter the giveaway contest, you must comment on this post to complete the mandatory entry, but then other entry options will become available once you’ve completed that task.

To win, you must be at least 18 years old and a resident of the continental US. The two winners will receive their choice of birthday bouquet (up to a $75 value). Click here for all official rules.

Giveaway ends at midnight EST on June 2nd, 2013. The sweepstakes winners will be announced by June 9th, 2013.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck and happy weekend!

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Adventures in Gardening Update!

So it’s been over a month since we planted our garden, and MAN has it grown.

First up? Our tomatoes! We planted 5 little tomato plants. You may remember, they looked like this:

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How about now? Check it out!

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The tomatoes are out of control! I actually need to do some serious pruning on some of them, otherwise I’ll never be able to get through the vines to all of the tomatoes. There are lots of green tomatoes growing, but nothing has turned red yet.

At the end of this planter, I had planted a supposed yellow squash plant. Well, the plant grew huge.

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And much to my surprise, the store must have mislabeled the plant– it’s a patty pan squash plant!

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My second planter is full of peppers. The peppers don’t seem to be growing that well, however, I do have 2 kinda sad looking jalapenos almost ready to pick, so hopefully more will come! We’ve had a ton of wind in the last month and I don’t think the pepper plants have liked it too much.

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I also have a zucchini and a yellow squash in this planter, and they both have little squashes growing already.

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My planter of lettuce and herbs is not doing so hot. We ate lots of lettuce this month, but lettuce is a cooler weather veggie so it’s getting to the end of it’s season. I’m not sure why the herbs aren’t doing well. My basil got real woody, yellowish, and stopped producing big leaves. My green onions and chives don’t seem to be growing at all. And something is eating my sage. I also added parsley to this planter, and it seems to be doing OK for now. Any ideas why my herbs are failing? I started some new basil from seed, so I’ll replace the woody stuff once it grows. I also put some rosemary in the tomato planter and it seems to be doing really well.

I’m glad I planted my mint in a separate pot because, as expected, it’s going nuts. And this is after a few weekends of mint juleps!

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The planter we planted with green bean and okra seeds is doing great. The plants are huge and I already have skinny beans and tiny okras.

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The planter with cucumbers and eggplants, on the other hand, didn’t do so well. Only a couple of eat plants sprouted, and they are still tiny and sad looking. I ended up buying 3 cucumber seedlings and one eggplant, and putting them in the planter. They’re definitely doing better than the ones we started from seed.

The last planter had butternut squash and watermelon. Only 2 butternuts sprouted and they don’t look that great yet. The watermelons, on the other hand, seem to be going strong– but no fruit yet.

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Hopefully I’ll have a bountiful harvest and more to report soon. In the meantime, any advice? We’ve always been really successful with tomatoes, but I don’t know much about growing anything else!


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