Monday, July 28, 2014

The Big Cookout Party

What's more exciting in the month of July than the annual W family picnic/cookout/party/bbq?


Once again, the W family hosted its annual cookout.  Some of us call it a party.  Some call it a cookout and some of us call it the Bauer BBQ.  Party is a bit fancy for what this shindig really is.

It's a cookout.

A backyard supper.

A chance for people to sit on the lawn and eat each others' food.


This year, we had a couple of showers just as the party/cookout started, so people headed inside or under the awning or the easy-up tent that k-ster put up.  We've never had rain the day of the Bauer BBQ, so that kind of threw us for a loop!

Remember, we don't know how to deal with rain.  That fact will come in handy at the end of this post.

Somewhere along the way, I started making chicken and beef kabobs and now they are a staple at our annual cookout.

Every year, I buy a million skewers because I think I have hundreds to make.
It doesn't even take one bag and yet, whenever I see them on sale, I think I have to BUY THEM ALL because we'll never have enough.

It could be that every year, I remember that it looks like this before I start threading the skewers.  It looks like so much that I'll be stuck to the grill for days.

This year, I swore I was going to cut back on the kabobs and offer hamburgers and hot dogs too.  We have some less fancy people who come and ask for hotdogs and hamburgers.  I'm tired of trying to expand their palates, so I caved on the hamburgers and hot dogs this year.

Plus, I hear that we always run out of kabobs long before people have had their fill, so I figured this would satisfy everyone.   I wouldn't know because I'm usually knee deep in cooking them all night long.

It turns out I didn't really cut back, so I spent just as much time threading and cooking these kabobs as I do every year!  Instead of cooking them at the party while everyone talks to me and I'm not really paying attention to them, I decided to cook them on my new grill at my house.  It's a little bigger than my parents' grill plus, with the burgers and dogs needing cooking, we needed extra space.

This was a nice break from the usual.  Instead of not listening to people who were trying to talk while I worried about how pink the chicken might be, I grilled by myself and worried about how pink the chicken was and then brought everything over.

As always, the kabobs were sucked down by the masses, but I hear they also had their fair share of dogs and burgers.

Next year, I swear I'm getting one package of beef and less chicken so I can spend a little less time on the prep.  But, I've got a well oiled machine here, so I'm sure that as I stand at the meat counter, I'll end up with just as much as I always buy.

The tedium is in the threading of the skewers.  Plus, it's always a fun game of chance to see if I'll stab myself with the skewers and get splinter. 

I do it every. single. time!

Here's the recipe for the kabobs.  We cannot deviate from this recipe!  I had my own squash and onions growing this year, so all I needed to get was the mushrooms and the zucchini.  I will cut back on the oil next year.  It seemed like too much though I've never noticed that before.

Also, I always make a few skewers that just have meat for those who don't like my vegetable choices!  Or maybe it's because really, I end up having more meat than veggies at the end!

So, back to the little tidbit about the rain.  Once the showers had ended, most everyone was outside.  Some were still under the rollout awning on my parents's deck, but most of us were down on the lawn.

Suddenly, I heard a noise like a hose and wondered why anyone was hosing off the deck with people on it.  And then I realized.

My close to 90 year old aunt was standing, soaking wet, sputtering.  Someone had rolled in the awning and all of the water that had collected poured out on her has she was standing and saying her good byes.  Like a total soaking shower.

We work hard to make our gatherings memorable!

When anyone tried to leave early, we made sure to send my niece Beanster after them.

No one gets away before dark.  NO.ONE.

Linking here:
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2014/07/clever-chicks-blog-hop-97-featuring.html
http://www.flamingotoes.com/2014/07/think-pink-sunday-175/
http://www.lovebakesgoodcakes.com/
http://www.skiptomylou.org

2 comments:

  1. This makes me wish my family was bigger and we did stuff like this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's not that we have a big family, but when we each invite people, it suddenly grows! Invite a few people, tell them to invite a few and the next thing you know, you have a back yard bash!

    ReplyDelete

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