Making an Indoor Memorial Day Picnic with Patti and Lisa! 🇺🇲

Hi family, welcome to At Home today. It is Memorial Day indoor picnic. Yes, you know, I can’t tell you how many times Paul and I have planned picnics in the park. Or we’ve planned them with other people at their homes, or at our home. And it gets rained out. Because the weather is so iffy. So I decided instead of us standing outside, which we’ve done many times, and almost have the tents blown off the hill and us also. We were going to plan a picnic that you could cook indoors or outdoors. If it’s nice outside today, fire up the grill. If it isn’t, not a problem, we can do it right here in the kitchen and even make the house look like a festive occasion because we are celebrating Memorial Day. Memorial Day is one of those holidays that, I guess it means more to older people, people that have served in, maybe first or second World War. And now of course all the other wars that have happened, maybe not as intense as they were, the first and second. But, I tell you what, they’re a lot of people who are survivors and there are a lot of families that suffered much during those times. So today we stop and we remember that those folks gave their lives, some gave their health so that we could have a free America. And even though it’s tumultuous times that we’re living right now with everything that’s going on, we can be centered and our faith and our trust can be in God. That he will bring us through. I admonish you to pray for this country. Pray for the leadership, the bible tells us to pray for those in authority over us. We need to be praying for our Senators, the Congressman, our local leaders, our local officials. We need to make it a matter of prayer for this country every single day. It doesn’t matter if you agree with who’s in the authority now, the Republicans, the Democrats, the whoevers. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that we need to pray for them. So today we’re having our picnic, it’s an indoor picnic here At Home and it’s in honor of those who have given so much that we could live in a free America. We’ll be right back after the hint to get started with a lot of good picnic foods. Here At Home, we’ll see you then. Here’s today’s at home hint. Cake should be baked on the center shelf to allow for even distribution of heat. And never open the oven during the first 15 to 20 minutes of baking time. Or the cake may collapse. If you’ve got a helpful hint, we would love to hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints, Cornerstone Television, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. Well my Lisa pizzas with me today, this is my niece.

Hello.

We’re glad you’re here.

Nice to be here.

Yeah she came for Easter and helped and she did just a good job. Said come on back to help us with Memorial Day. You’re going to start with, this is your.

Artichoke crab dip.

Yeah that’s what I mean to say. Okay. And just go through what all the ingredients are.

Okay, eight ounce cream cheese softened and a cup of Hellman’s mayonnaise in here.

So that’s what she already has here. You just, you don’t even use a mixer or anything with that right?

No you just mix that up while it’s soft.

Okay. It has to be soft.

Right. And then next you want to put, this is one pint of imitation crab meat.

Or you could use real crab if you wanted to.

Yeah I’ve never tried it but it’s probably.

Yeah who can afford it huh?

Yeah.

So that’s really like fish is what that is, that’s not like just imitation like phony.

Right.

Phony ingredients, it really is fish.

Uh-hum.

Okay.

One jar of artichoke hearts.

Marinated.

Marinated yes, you just drain it then you chop them up.

Okay.

And then you want to add that in.

Okay. You like artichokes?

Yeah I like.

I liked them in that. Now Paul really likes them in a salad if you get the hearts out of the jar.

Yeah.

He likes that.

Like some people artichoke, or artichoke sandwiches.

Yeah.

And then you have 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese.

If you folks really say, if you had a camera, we had a camera setup while we were prepping, that would be the show. Because we’ve had wild and woolly day here haven’t we?

Yeah. And 1/3 cup of chopped onions.

Okay.

Okay.

And you’re just going to mix that up, put it in a casserole.

You want to spray it first.

Okay and then what’s the bake on 375, right?

375 for 20 minutes.

Oh.

It’ll get bubbly and you can tell, you know, brown a little bit.

And then you serve to dip that with?

I use the water crackers.

Those little round ones.

Yeah.

They’re on the table.

You can use anything though, if you want to get the little french breads and toast them.

Oh that’s nice, yeah.

You know.

Okay. Good. Now, while she’s finishing that. For the picnic a lot of people are dieting so, this is something that you could really beef up or beef down. But this is just good anytime of the year. And especially now because all summer stuff, the good vegetables and stuff is coming. As you can see here I have a variety. I have red onion, asparagus, zucchini, yellow squash, little tomatoes, I have red peppers, I have green peppers, I have cherry tomatoes, mushrooms. There’s just everything in here. And I even have a head of garlic that I have just cut down til it exposes the tops of the garlic. Okay. Cloves. Now all you do with this, any variety, if you don’t like these, do the varieties that you like. Broccoli, you could do broccoli, cauliflower, you can do, what’s the other ones that like, brussel sprouts are great. They’re super, whoops, I want to put some of this. I’m just putting olive oil on top of there and I want to put olive oil, drizzle right on the top of this head of garlic, just like that. Okay. Now, this is kosher salt. And it’s a little thicker, you can see the grains are thicker. And I just salt that down. Don’t have to put a lot, I put a little bit here. Okay, just salt it down. And some pepper. There we go. Just like that. Okay.

Colorful huh?

Isn’t it beautiful.

Pretty.

Particularly, there’s baby carrots in here, you could put olives in here, whatever you really like, vegetables, or your family likes. Then I’m just going to take one of these, you don’t have to but, you got to get your hands in there because you want to mix them up well. So that all the vegetables are evenly coated. Now you don’t want the oil laying in the bottom of the pan, but you certainly want them to be covered and not, because if they’re dry then that’s no good. But what happens when we roast these, they caramelize. They get that sweetness to them that you don’t get if you just eat them raw or sometimes you fry them they don’t get sweet.

You just cook them til they’re like just crunchy a little.

Just tender.

Tender.

Yeah, you don’t want them mushy. Lisa I’m telling you, you can put this over pasta. If you have leftover the next day, that’s why I make a lot. In fact I’ve got two pans going. Because, number one you love them like this the first day. Boil pasta the next day, throw this on top of the pasta, this is incredible. And then you just put them on your baking sheet.

So healthy too.

Here’s potatoes, look wedges of potatoes. It is healthy. And you know everybody’s looking for ways to get kids to each vegetables.

Uh-hum.

I’m going to tell you they’ll eat this, they really will. Now obviously be nice if these were in single layer but, if you pile them up it will be okay. Now we have our oven on 400 degrees. How long will this take? Oh probably about 40, 45 minutes like this. But halfway thru set your timer for just halfway thru, like 20 minutes. Then when you come, you go in there, take your spatula, stir them around so that the brown on the bottom comes to the top and then what’s on top will go in the bottom and get nice and brown. That’s all you do with it, that’s it.

You don’t usually think you can do something like that in your house but, you can grill, but yeah.

It’s beautiful.

It’s wonderful.

Yeah and I think kids will eat that, I’m pretty sure they will, anyway. Okay. When we get these out before we serve them, we’re going to just pour, pull some basil leaves or julienne, you know, chop them up and sprinkle, just adds another dimension. You don’t want to put them in there to cook because sometimes that gets bitter.

Okay.

Okay. Alright, Patty, Patty’s going to get help us get started with our cake. Let’s go ahead and put in these in our oven. Lisa on the bottom if you want to put those right there. I already have a pan going because we got a lot coming for dinner. Okay. And yours is in the top. Go Patty, start to tell us.

Just made a white or yellow cake and I made buttercream, you could use store bought frosting or whatever your favorite frosting is. And we’re just going to mark this so we’ll have 12 spots. So you want to do like three lines.

You do it in half and then.

Yeah.

Clear across right.

So you have three lines this way and you don’t cut all the ways through, you’re just marking the top.

Then we’re just going to do the two lines.

And do two this way because then you’ll have three across and that will give you 12 slices.

You are so good.

You know what, you didn’t know I was mathematician did you?

Yeah, I didn’t. Still not sure that I do. But that’s okay. See and then you have 12 and these are pretty big cuts. If you wanted to make them smaller you could, or you can cut each, when you see what we do here, you can cut each of those in half.

And then you take a star tip.

No if you didn’t have a star tip, if you’re not into decorating, you could certainly, you know, sometimes they have those cool whip bags.

Yeah.

You can buy cool whip like that. And you can do the whole thing with cool whip, you’d really have to keep it in the fridge. Okay.

Yeah.

But, this.

Buttercream you don’t have to.

Yeah. And if you don’t have like this whole big set, you can buy those little plastic jobs for like a buck.

And this is quick, it’s easy and it looks impressive because they’re little stars people think you know what you’re doing.

Hurry could you get the can?

Yeah, you could use it. I would thin it down a little bit so it comes out of the, better. We’re going to take a break. When we come back, Patty’s going to keep going here. When we come back we’re going to finish with a whole lot more of our indoor picnic Here At Home. We’ll be right back. Well we’re right here in the middle of our Memorial Day indoor picnic Here At Home. And we’ve just sectioned off our cake. This is called a fruit square cake. And now Lisa is going to continue. She’s got a can of blueberry pie filling, cherry pie filling and that’s pineapple. But you could use peach, you could do with pudding, whatever. And she’s just going to fill those squares. So we’re going to go ahead and let you get started. Patty you’re going to help me.

Yeah.

Okay we’ve got some pans going here. Tell me what you’re doing with that.

Okay. I made hamburgers. What we did was put a little garlic powder, little salt, little pepper, flavor the meat.

And it’s about a 1/4 of a pound per burger. So that’s two pounds.

And we did eight.

And I did a pound of ground chuck and a pound ground meat, because you want a little bit of grease in there for the flavor.

Right. We just formed them into little balls.

Okay.

Make them little patties and then we’re going to fill them.

We’re going to fill them. Let me tell you about the filings. We have blue cheese, just out of a carton, crumbled blue cheese. We have salsa, that’s going to make a hot burger. And then this is just some sauteed mushrooms and onion. And that’s what I’m going to put in mine. Let me show you how you do this. You make it pretty flat.

Okay.

Flat, flat, flat. Then you take a little bit of the filling. Now you can’t overfill them because it’ll burst. So you take a little bit of the filling and you just, see you maneuver the meat. Yeah maneuver the meat around it to cover it, but it has to be totally sealed in there.

And then they get a surprise.

Like that. Yeah. Cool. See and then you’re ready to go.

Cool.

If you have time you want to make these ahead of time, make them, put them in the fridge and that kind of solidifies them too.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

Alright do you want me to do a blue cheese?

Absolutely.

Then you want with mushroom.

Go ahead and I’m going to, just you keep going. Now once these have cooked pretty much clear through, then we’re going to drop a slice of cheese on top to make them cheeseburgers okay.

Is that enough, too much?

Too much. Take, yeah, about half of that.

Okay.

Because now that will ooze out if you don’t be careful. Okay, now I’m going to change my gloves because I’m going to do something with hot dogs. Then we’re going to stuff them. And we’re going wrap some yummy bacon around them. If I ever get the glove on it’ll really be a good deal.

Those gloves are hard to put on.

There we go. You know it’s nice to have these in your house and you can go to the dollar store and get a little pack of these. It’s just nice when you’re making things that are kind of sloppy and you have a nice manicure. You don’t want to mess it up, it’s a thing. We’ve got, these are the natural casing hot dogs. They even were with a string, you know, between them, they’re all strung together. These are so much better, costs a little more, but they taste so good. And they’re like when you take a bite of Pops, that’s the good stuff. Then we have just slit it down the middle, not clear through, but just down the middle. And we have some chunks of cheddar cheese. Just like that, julienne strip. Then we stuffed it into the hot dog. I’ll show you how to do that. You see where your slit is, take your piece of cheese. And just stuff it in, you want to push it clear up to the edge where you have started the slit. Push it in there. And get another little piece. And you push that down the other way. Okay. There it is. Okay. Then, you’re going to take a piece of bacon, you’ll start at the top, at one end. And I’m just going to do a toothpick there to hold it in place. So that while you’re wrapping it doesn’t move all around. Because this is going to help to keep, and you want to stretch it a little bit. This is going to help to keep the cheese in the dog. Just like that.

That looks really good.

Doesn’t it look good?

That’s looks wonderful.

And then you’re skewer this end too with a toothpick and I’m just going to put them, I don’t have a grill, so I’m just going to put them on my indoor grill. Okay. Again, and when you’re buying your bacon try to look and find one that doesn’t have, like you know when you look in a package it looks like there’s a piece of bacon and then it breaks and there’s a little piece of bacon. You want the ones that’s straight across, because it’ll help you to wrap these better. Just works better. Again, you’re going to skewer and then, you know these gloves are coming off I can tell you that right now. Because, you know, if these are not cooperating, we don’t need them. Not on this deal. Okay. Oh feels so much better.

Yes.

Okay. Now.

Liberated.

Liberating, absolutely liberating. And this will help to keep the cheese in there. Lisa!

That’s beautiful.

Let’s take a look at that cake.

That looks beautiful.

Oh man is that pretty.

So easy too I mean, so pretty.

Look how beautiful. It’s impressive huh?

Very impressive.

Yeah.

We were so absorbed in hamburgers and hot dogs, I wasn’t even looking to see what you were doing. That is absolutely beautiful. See how easy that was? You bake a cake.

It was.

My goodness.

Beautiful.

And everybody has a variety, maybe somebody doesn’t like blueberries.

And it even smells good.

Uh-huh.

With that fruit, um.

Yeah.

Wonderful.

Delicious.

And yeah this is the time of the year. And I know Lisa’s kids love fruit.

Uh-hum.

And, you know, if I make a fruit tray when we go to her house for picnic, the kids will eat it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah my kids like fruit too.

And that’s better than putting chips and pretzels and stuff out. It’s alright to have a little bit of that, but not a constant diet of it’s not good.

Right.

But that, they’ll eat that I know.

Oh definitely.

They will love it.

Just the appearance of it just so you know.

The icing helps too.

Yeah that’s right.

A little bit of a serving.

Harm to it. Okay. Lisa you want to do some of these? Yeah. But you know truly, these things like that, you would keep that in the fridge probably, I would keep that in the fridge. The cake.

Oh yeah.

Because I wouldn’t want that, because that’s a buttercream and it’s got.

That might get a little soft.

Yeah.

Well the fruit wouldn’t go bad though would it?

No, no that wouldn’t, not at all. Now, when we do our vegetables, don’t forget you want to stir them at least one time during the baking, the vegetables that are in the over. Make sure you stir them one time to get them nice and browned evenly. And again, they’re going to bake probably about 20 minutes then you’re going to flip them about another 20 minutes. Put your fork in there to make sure that they don’t get mushy, because you don’t want them mushy, you definitely don’t.

How we doing Patty? We doing good?

One more burger.

One more, okay. Look how nice, there’s not a lot of grease coming out of here either. In fact we might need a little butter here so they don’t stick. Let me see what I have here. I’m just going to put just a little nip to keep that moist in there. And that adds flavor too.

Do I need to wrap the one?

Yeah go ahead and put the cheese in there. Put the cheese in them and then we’ll, is this one done?

Yeah.

Good.

Smell good in here.

It smells like a picnic huh?

Yeah it really does.

The bacon, all the flavors as, those vegetables smell so good.

Vegetables with that garlic.

Oh my goodness. Absolutely. We’re turning that baby down because it’s getting too hot. But again, if you can go outside. Fire up the grill, okay. We’re going to be back and we’ll be in the dining room showing you our picnic when we come back. So stay tuned. Here’s how you can get today’s recipes, in fact the whole months worth. We’ll be right back. Well, it’s our Happy Memorial Day picnic Here At Home in the kitchen. Because the weather probably isn’t real good outside. But just in case we have it covered. Let’s take a little trip. You girls did such good work today, I tell you. Nothing like a team effort when you’re having a party, get your friends to help you. Let’s start right here, here’s Lisa’s crab and artichoke dip. That’s on these wonderful little water crackers, actually they’re pretty big. But that combination just tastes good doesn’t it Lisa?

Yeah.

It does.

I’ve had it with other crackers, doesn’t taste the same, I don’t know why.

Yeah.

Okay and then look at her vegetables. I told you. And the juices that come off that, you think oh that’s grease or oil, that is not. That’s the juices out of the vegetables and if you have leftovers cook some pasta tomorrow night and put that on it with a little cheese on top.

Oh heavenly.

Oh my, everybody’s like, okay. Now next to that, look at the cake. Concerted effort from Lisa and Patty. But isn’t that a beautiful cake? I just, and it’s so easy to serve. If you have 12 people cut 12 squares. If not, you have 24 cut them in half. I’m just, I’m so pleased with that cake, it is so pretty. Totally pretty. Okay. Next to that where we going here? Let’s go to our hot dogs right there. We got the cheese, don’t they look good?

Oh my yeah.

Now if you want that bacon around there to, I started them on the grill but then I put them in the oven to make sure that the bacon gets good and crispy. You want to be sure to do that, okay. Just toasted the buns a little bit. And we put all of our condiments for all of, anything that we’re having here today. Just put them in a nice little basket. And you know get the ones with the tops. The mayonnaise even comes with a squeeze top, the relish, perfect. We added sliced onions, slice tomatoes, some lettuce to go on our wonderful cheeseburgers, our stuffed cheeseburgers, look at that. Some have salsa, some have blue cheese and some have mushrooms and onions, that’s my favorite. But all of them are combination and again toast those buns on the grill because it just tastes so much better. And I want to tell you always have to cook ground meat completely, can’t have raw burgers. Can’t do it. Because of the contamination stuff, you could do a steak rare, but you cannot do burgers rare. You have to cook it clear through for our safety okay. And then we just added a lots of fruit, because this is stuff people like on a picnic. Sliced all kinds of melons, watermelon. We have some salsa and dip here. We’ve got lemonade, we’ve got pop getting chilled, what else could you want for a great Memorial Day, except your friends and your family with you. And I hope that that’s how you’ll spend yours. It’s been great, it’s been a lot of fun, thanks girls, I really appreciate it. And we appreciate you coming by. And please remember those who gave everything so that this country could be free. Be sure to join us the next time because it wouldn’t be the same without you. We’ll see you then.

Furnishings provided by Levin Furniture. Featuring Lanes Country Living Collection. Food provided by Jordan Banana Company, wholesalers of fresh fruit and vegetables in Dravosburg, Pennsylvania.

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