A Birthday and Barbecue

Our sweet Rosy turned three and we had a very low-key birthday party for her this weekend, which means we had family over, I made a few bouquets for the table, and cooked a meal.  It was so nice!  The more birthdays we have for the girls, the more I'm gravitating towards simple parties as they seem to be a lot more enjoyable for all! Plus it was so nice to have the family all together and visit.

I have several old tablecloths that belonged to my grandmother and I love pulling them out for special meals. I brought a card table in and "attached" it to our dining room table so we had enough seats for all the adults.  Then we had a separate little table for the sweet little cousins.   

 There was a time I thought I would never say this (believe me), but one of my favorite things about having friends or family over is cooking a meal for everyone.  Since we're in the midst of a hot July, I decided on a menu of summer barbecue dishes.  We don't eat a lot of pork, but I cooked this pulled pork with spicy peach-mustard sauce (using recently made peach jam) from the cookbook The Art of Preserving, and it was so delicious.  (I'm sorry, I can't find the recipe online anywhere, but the cookbook is worth purchasing if you like to can!) 

Three-color slaw (recipe here)... 

Potato salad (recipe here)... plus sweet pickles and sliced tomatoes from the garden.  (Not pictured, because I get so busy I always forget to take pictures of all the food!) 

  For dessert I made a cake that I saw in my Pioneer Woman cookbook.  Her recipe uses strawberries, but my parents have wild blackberries blooming all over the farm, so I used the blackberries instead.  These were so good!  They are a little tart, but after sitting in a little sugar... oh my...

Now my picture really does not do justice to how good this cake is.  (Not to mention I assembled it in a hurry with everyone in the kitchen watching - ha!)  But here is the link for the recipe and you can view The Pioneer Woman's beautiful photos instead.  ;-)  The cake was a winner.  So delicious and easy too since there wasn't any frosting.  

Just a note on the recipe - I used a dark chocolate almond spread instead of Nutella and I decreased the amount of sugar in the whipped cream to 1/4 cup and used organic granulated sugar instead of powdered.   Also, I baked the chocolate cakes the night before to save time, and put them in the freezer until about 15 minutes before I was ready to assemble the cake.  It worked perfect!

Last night I received a text from my sister-in-law and it was a picture of Rosetta from the evening.  She said, "You should put this picture on your blog!"  It was a picture of Rosetta wearing her pretty birthday dress, grinning ear to ear... and her dress pulled up (unbeknownst to her) with a chicken in her arms.  It's rare to be outside and see Rosetta without one of her chickens, even in a pretty dress!  Too cute!  (And I did want to put the picture up, but decided I probably shouldn't have a photo of Rosetta with her panties showing on the internet!  ;-) )

Hope you have a wonderful week!