Fourth of July Cookout

For the Fourth of July we had my stepbrother and his wife over for a cookout. We had invited another couple but unfortunately the wife was very sick with bronchitis and they couldn't make it. We had a ton of food and it was all delicious. My plate with a burger and helpings of both salads:


After eating this tri-colore salad at one of my ladies lunches I knew I had to make it.


I couldn't stop eating it. Delicious and healthy. My stepbrother made a tomato and red onion salad with mozzarella and a balsamic vinegar dressing:


In my opinion you can't go wrong with mozzarella and tomato. I also grilled some corn, although this time we tried something different. Usually I grill the corn straight on the grates (no foil wrapping) but SP saw grilled corn in one of my food magazines and liked the idea of wrapping it up with butter and salt beforehand.


Unfortunately it takes a lot longer to cook like that, so we took it off the grill before it got nice char marks. I'm going back to my old method. For dessert my sister-in-law brought a boxed cake mix for chocolate lava cakes. We whipped these up after dinner and had them with vanilla ice cream:


The cakes were small but sinfully rich. A great ending to a great meal.