The "The Labor Day Picnic", edition.

Yeah, two entries, two days in a row. It happens. This one is about the last summer dinner with our seniors, Pauline, Carl, Herbert and Dad. I've actually planned out dinners for them for the year. I served ribs for Memorial Day and for July 4th. What to have for Labor Day?  I thought let's try fried chicken. But you know me, I'm not trying to fry chicken for a crowd. Now I can fry chicken and my fried chicken tastes good. But it's....messy. So yeah.  I haven't fried chicken in years and wasn't about to start. And I didn't want KFC, especially with the new creepy Colonel Sanders!  I digress. And even though I like Popeye's I didn't want that either. Too bad there's not a Chicken Shack out here. I looked for broasted chicken. Las Vegas didn't disappoint. Or rather it did. Lol. I found exactly 2 broasted chicken restaurants in the entirety of metropolitan Las Vegas.  And one of them was in Boulder City. :-/  Much too far.  Fortunately the other on was in Las Vegas. A ways away from us but when put in perspective it was close enough. 

So as always, I try out my menu items in advance. And the same held true for the chicken. We had to try it out to see if it was good enough. About a month ago Brian and I found our way to The Streets of New York. Yes, that's the name of the restaurant. It's actually a west coast based pizza chain, but they also prepare broasted chicken. We got a family meal and Brian, Dad and I had it for dinner. It passed the taste test. Item number one complete. 

Other menu items included greens, corn, deviled eggs, fresh tomato slices and cheesy biscuits. That was a fairly easy menu. The corn was Olathe sweet corn. From Olathe, Colorado. Notice "sweet corn". I saw the grocery circular so I bought some ears and tried it. It was almost as good as michigan sweet corn. And that was good enough. I went back and bought a lot, a LOT of ears in early August  cooked and froze the corn. The cheese biscuits came from a recipe I saw on TV. The original recipe called for blue cheese, which was good, but it was too strong.  This time I used cheddar. I also made these in advance to try them out. The deal with the biscuits is you cut each biscuit into quarters. That makes for a whole lot of biscuits, 32 per can.  And no way can the three of us eat all of those biscuits. So I froze those. 

Two weeks before the dinner I fixed the greens. Because my dad claimed he didn't like greens. And while I was growing up, he never ate them. There were a lot of things he didn't eat. Yes, he was so picky that mom would fix different meals for him sometimes. That's what you call a spoiled husband. Mom really loved Dad. I digress. Since we've been out here, he's been quite adventurous in eating and told me he'd try greens. I almost fell out of the chair!   Lol. So I fixed the greens. You know by now my greens recipe is the same as my green bean recipe. It's basically a vegetarian version and cuts out the hammocks or smoked turkey and still tastes good. Anyway.  So guess who ate the greens?  And had a second helping...and a third helping?  And even liked the pot liquor?  Lol. 

Finally I rounded the dinner out with sriacha deviled eggs. Not  too spicy, just enough to give you a poke but you're not sure who poked you!  Oh and some slices of some big fat tomatoes. Except I got the tomatoes from the grocery store. And they were not as good as the farmers market tomatoes. /cry.  Desert was apple pie with ice cream.  And I got Carl some really fancy neopolitan ice cream to take home......the strawberry part had strawberries, the chocolate part had chocolate pieces and the vanilla part had vanilla beans!   And oh yeah, the chicken came with slaw. So yeah. Slaw was served also. 

Dinner is at 4:00. Dad picks up Carl. Pauline and Herbert live in the condo complex. When they arrive, Dad serves his guests champagne.  Pauline prefers a particular brand and Dad makes sure he has it. Long story short, our guests stayed until after 7:00. As always, I really enjoyed listening to them. They have great stories and life experiences. It is a history lesson. And they now expect to leave with their goody packages. When they arrive, they have their bags and return the containers!  They left this time with 2 pieces of chicken...yes, when I bought the chicken I figured in them taking food home, greens, corn and biscuits. And Carl had his ice cream! 

Brian and I finished the day with a treatment because we were going to a bowling party on Monday. And yes we went. It was a sorority function. So much pink and green!!  I need more pink and green!  Lol. 

Finally, I'm still feeling punky. I think it may be a side effect of a med. The strength was increased and that's about the time these symptoms started. I'm going to call my nurses today. I ate very little at our "picnic" and yesterday I was reduced to my favorite comfort food, Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup...don't judge me!  That being said, life goes on.  I still have things to do and am not interested in being in bed all day. Bleah. 

Have a great day. It's a short week!  

Yes, I used a pastry bag to pipe in the filling. The first time I tried it was pretty bad, but I learned. Lol.