Now We're Cookin'...

So I spent Memorial Day weekend carting chairs out to the front of the lawn (waiting until the landscape service comes by on Thursday to start putting things out where they belong) and picking up most of the cooking supplies I need. Now, to have everything ready on Saturday, I've got to start cooking. So I am.

Tonight I'm cooking up a huge pot of sweet and hot Italian sausages. I've sauteed up a bunch of sliced cubanelle and red bell peppers. slivered up a beautiful vidalia onion and chopped about 10 cloves of garlic, simmered them all nicely and added the sausages. I'll put them into aluminum pans at the end of the night, and reheat them in the oven on Saturday.

Once they're out of my big pot, I've got about 10 pounds of chicken to parboil, which I'll then smother in barbecue sauce, ready to go on the grill early Saturday afternoon.

Then, tomorrow night, after I go shopping, of course, I'll start marinating the sirloin tips in a sauce of teriyaki and soy. I'll also make the basic foundation for the Chicken Curry, ready to cook it up and add the yogurt and cashew finishing touches on the Big Stinkin' Day.

So the basic menu looks like this: about 2:30 p.m. we'll start putting out the appetizers: Hamburgers and hot dogs, sausages and peppers, pasta salad, and barbecue chicken. Then, about 5 p.m., I'm bringing out the sirloin tips, the baked ham, the Paella, the chicken curry, and the baked ziti. I'm also making a really nice watermelon salad, with cubes of sweet watermelon tossed in red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper, vidalia onion slices and feta cheese, then sprinkled with mint leaves.

Hope people are coming hungry. My mother always told me to make sure you've got enough for everybody....