Some pictures and a recipe

We had a Fourth of July party last Saturday and everyone had a blast(except for June, I'll show you why at the end of this post). We had lots of great food, drinks and we even had a live band! I had mentioned in my previous post that my neighbor has a band, so we had asked them if they would like to play at the party and they gladly agreed to play. They did a great job! Below are some pictures of the party set-up and the band. Please enjoy a short video clip of the band playing(sorry I didn't video-tape the entire song)

Picture below is our new grill/fire pit that hubby made 2 days before the party. We all enjoyed the food cooked on the grill and we had a wonderful time sitting by the fire after the party. After everyone left, both hubby and I along with his daughter & her boyfriend and my beighbors sat by the fire and chat until 3:00AM!!! Good times, good times.

Here's the cake I made, I have seen this cake in magazines before and I have been wanting to make it but we never had any Fourth of July party so I had no "excuse" to make it until now.

We also did some of this! I'll have to learn how to take better pictures of fireworks.

Remembered I said that everyone enjoyed the party except for June? Well my poor baby is terrified of loud noises and doesn't do well with crowd(that's why we very seldom throw parties at our house). With the music from the band and some fireworks, it was just too terrifying for her. I went upstairs and found her in the bathtub and she stayed there the whole night until everyone's gone. Samantha on the other hand kept whinning to go outside to be with the guests and when I let her out, she was so happy and she went to greet everyone(and I really mean everyone). But when Samantha was upstairs, she stayed in the bathroom with June to keep her company(how sweet).

We made lots of food for the party: hot dogs, hamburgers, Cajun chicken, Hot & Sweet sausages, Carolina Pulled Pork, macaroni salad, coleslaw, potato salad, baked ziti, baked beans, chips & salsa, Sun-dried tomato & Olive Tapenade, apple pies and Wave The Flag cake. I think I gain 10 pounds just written all that out. LOL!

I love the Sun-dried tomato & Olive Tapenade. It's very tasty and it's so easy to make. I realized that I have not posted any recipe for quite some time now and here's one I would like to share with you. Enjoy!

Sun-dried Tomato & Olive Tapenade

Ingredients:
8 pieces of sun-dried tomatoes, reserve the oil
2 cups each of black olive and green olives (you can use just one kind or both or use Kalamata olives)
2-3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
3 cloves garlic
½ cup capers, optional
1 ½ teaspoon grated Parmesan cheese, optional
salt & pepper to taste *be careful with the salt as the olives are salty already

Instructions:

Place all ingredients in a food processor. Add 4-5 tablespoons of oil from the sun-dried tomatoes. Process until everything is coarsely chopped. Olive tapenade should be course with some chunks, not smooth and creamy. Serve with celery sticks or crackers.