Picnic style food with Mrs. Wilkes' recipes served on a rainy day!

I have been MIA for a week now.  Even though I have cooked I haven't sat down and wrote about it until now.  Last time I wrote was last Sunday and I was logging off to go work in the kitchen.  I had accomplished a lot in that day and will start of this blog entry from there.

As I wrote earlier, I was having friends over for dinner that night.  Ron and Kathy agreed to be taste testers for my project and also play some Euchre with us afterwards.  Dinner was set up to be at 6 p.m. and I had a lot planned for the menu:

Here's what I had planned on making for that dinner:

Barbecue Pork
Barbecue Sauce
Barbecue Ribs
Cole Slaw
Bean Salad
Baked Beans
Deviled Eggs
Pecan Pie

The very first thing I had to work on was getting the pork into the crockpot to cook.  This is my second pork roast.  We loved it so much, we had to have it again.  Next on my list to complete was the barbecue sauce.  Again, I have made it before and made two batches for the barbecue pork and also the ribs.  Not sure that 6 cups in the original recipe would be enough.  Turned out that it would have been enough....sigh....

Next was working on the Deviled Eggs.  My second attempt at boiling eggs and I decided to take Brenda's suggestion and boil my eggs with her directions.  I am sad to report that my eggs once again didn't turn out.  Tom had to go out to the store and buy more eggs.  He then became the man in charge and stated he will get the eggs cooked.  He came back from the store with medium eggs that were on sale.  I used Eggland Best extra large eggs and he came back with medium krogers eggs.

He said his secret is to add salt and vinegar to the water and then he boiled them pretty hard and then let them sit on the stove with a lid.  I have no idea how long he let them go, but it was a while, he didn't time them.  Once he thought they were done, they peeled really easy.  He peeled them for me and even peeled my Eggland eggs and was eating them as a consolation prize.  He believed that the Eggland eggs were perhaps too fresh or I just don't let them boil long enough to get them properly cooked.  But he did save the day and get them done and I did made the yolk mixture to pipe into the eggs.

Lets talk about what Mrs. Wilkes' likes in her yolk mixutre.  Her recipe calls for mayonnaise, sweet pickle relish, pimentoes and french dressing.  Tom sampled an egg and said they were really good, but perhaps he would add a little more mayo to it the next time.  I also got out my Pampered Chef decorator to pipe the filling into the eggs.  We put them in a tray and into the refrigerator to chill.

Next was the Pecan Pie.  Not my first one, but instead of Mrs. Wilkes recipe, I used the recipe on the Karo bottle.  The pie came out a little overcooked and some of the filling came out of the pan.  Not as good as I remember making them in the past.  Once it was out of the oven, I let it cook on a rack.

Bean Salad was next on my list to do.  This is a cold bean salad that called for french cut green beans, tiny English peas, celery, onion, green pepper, pimentoes in an oil-vinegar mixture.  It was really easy to assemble and I got it together and put it also in the refrigerator to chill. 

Tom was still in the kitchen helping me out and I asked him if he would grate the cabbage for the Cole Slaw.  He got out my Pampered Chef Ultimate Slice-n-Grate and grated up 4 cups of the cabbage for the recipe.  I have never made Cole Slaw before.  I am not usually a fan of it.  I am not a fan of mayonnaise recipes but if someone makes it, I'll have a small serving to sample it.  Tom on the other had likes Cole Slaw and he was anxious to see how Mrs. Wilkes' would turn out.

Once he had the cabbage grated, I added grated carrot, pickle relish, sugar and mayonnaise and put it in a serving dish, into the refrigerator to chill.  It was easy to do!

One of my last recipes to assemble was Baked Beans.  This was another easy recipe to put together.  But I managed to mess it up.  Recipe called for 1/4 cups of catsup and 1/4 tsp. of mustard.  I mis-read the recipe and added 1/4 cup of mustard to the ingredients instead of 1/4 tsp.  I knew I had a problem when the color of the beans were more yellow than anything! LOL...So Tom was going back to the store to get me more beans since I ruined my first attempt.  He's been really good helping me out and bailing me out! Once he was back, I put the recipe together again to get it ready to go into the oven.

The last thing I assembled was the Barbecue Pork Ribs.  I was making these ahead of time, since i was going to served the shredded barbecue pork for dinner.  This was also my first attempt at cooking ribs in the oven.  I pre-cooked them for 30 minutes and then drained off the fat and then covered them in barbecue sauce and put them back into the oven until they were done.

Kathy and Ron were right on time for dinner.  I was busy getting everything out onto the table when they walked in.  I asked Ron if he brought his appetite with him and he said yes!  I said good as there was a lot of food to eat!  Here's photos of the dishes, and the table before we dug in:

I hope you weren't hungry when you looked at those photos!  I should have given a disclaimer before I put them up!

Time to finally dig in!  Most of the dishes could be passed around with the exception of the baked beans.  Kathy and Ron were both commenting that they are not usually fans of cold food.  They prefer hot food when they eat.  Most of my dishes were cold so I was a little worried.  Since they volunteered to be taste testers, they put a little of everything on their plates and got busy tasting.  The barbecue pork has a huge hit and Kathy said that having the buns buttered and toasted really made them even better.  I knew Ron was a fan eating a total of 3 sandwiches!  The cole slaw was also a hit by everyone, even myself!  It was really good and I think because it was the pickle relish that gave it that something special.  The bean salad was also liked by Kathy and Ron.  Tom would not touch it due to the raw onion and peppers.  I liked it ok.  I am not much for sweet and vinegar dishes.  But it did look pretty and had a nice crunch to it.

Deviled Eggs were gobbled up and Tom said they were really good and if I ever wanted to make them again, he would help and happily eat them all.  As we were all busy eating dinner, I reminded everyone that we had Pecan Pie (still warm) for dessert.  I also had whipped cream to serve with it.  Kathy asked if we could also have some coffee with dessert and I made up a pot.  The pie was really good, but again the texture was not as good as I remember making in the past. 

Once we got everything put away in the kitchen, it was time for some Euchre.  Kathy and I were partners against Tom and Ron.  The boys spanked us in two rounds.  It didn't help that I was being my usual cocky self in wanting to win and Ron is just as if not more so cocky than me.  So when he and Tom won, it was rubbed in our faces pretty hard.  We had a good time visiting with them and some left overs to work on for the next couple of days!