Fourth of July Eats!

Just a quick post tonight to share pics of my Fourth of July food and fun. I was off work yesterday, so I slept in, watched Evil Genius on Netflix, fit in a 4-mile trail run, and visited with a friend who's been sick and stuck at home for a week. And then I headed to my friend Andy's house for a Fourth of July cookout.

There were five of us there and only two vegan/vegetarian folks, so the meat eaters cooked their meat while my friend Mike and I cooked vegan brats and burgers. I brought the Tofurky brats, and Mike brought Morningstar Farms' new quarter-pound vegan burgers. I also wrapped some CSA summer squash in foil packets and threw that on the grill.

The salads you see here are from a cookbook I plan to review pretty soon, so I'll save the details for that. But there's a cucumber salad and Tennessee caviar (blackeyes peas, corn, tomato, onion, cilantro, and oil/vinegar dressing). Both were light and summer-y and perfectly balanced that heavy plant meat!

Sadly, Mike kinda burned the veggie burgers. So I scrapped that awesome Daiya cheese and onions off and added them to my brat.

Mike also brought his locally famous Vegan Rotel Dip! This has a base of melted vegan cheddar, almond milk, canned Rotel tomatoes & green chiles, and crumbled vegan sausage. He serves it in a Crock Pot, just like you're supposed to serve rotel dip in the South! It's so good, and I wish he would have sent me home with some leftovers! I'll have to steal his recipe and share with y'all soon.

(Fun fact: Mike's Chex Mix recipe gets more hits than any other post on this blog.)

After dinner, we headed downtown for the free fireworks show over the Mississippi River!