but this past weekend was one of my best friend's birthday, and i decided that the surprise picnic was the perfect time to make a few recipes that i'd come across lately.
the first one was Krista of poppyprintcreates.com's Summer's Best Salad. i had this salad back in february when Krista organized a retreat for the VMQG and i remember liking it, except for the cilantro (not a fan!). Krista posted the recipe recently, and since the friend who i was making this for likes quinoa, it was the perfect excuse to make it.
it looks good, but i kinda screwed it up! first, i skipped the cilantro, obviously, and i didn't use as many scallions as called for, because i didn't buy enough. those are no big deal, but i also realized after the fact that i hadn't measured the quinoa, i just used a full box, and i don't think i used enough. it was really really strong. i thought the lime was too strong, but several other people thought it was too sweet. (i found this tutorial for juicing a lime, and you get A LOT of juice with it!) if i'd had more quinoa, i think i would have made another box to spread the flavours out further, and it would've been great.
i also made a pasta salad, and googled for recipes for ideas of what to add. i found this recipe, and kind of followed it. i didn't add cucumber, because i didn't think it would hold up very well for leftovers, i didn't add tomatoes because i think fresh tomatoes are disgusting, i didn't add onions, because i forgot to buy one, and i used WAY less dressing than the recipe called for. but otherwise i followed it! and it was really good!
i wanted to make a cucumber salad as well, but ran out of time, which was fine, because we had soooo much food!
dessertwise, i made my peanut butter butterscotch marshmallow squares, because they're the birthday boy's favoutite, and super easy to make. instead of making squares, i poured the mixture into a buttered cupcake tin, to create cupcake-like shapes. once it had set, i popped them into cupcake liners, and you can see in the pictures that we put candles in them. i also tried putting a layer of melted chocolate over the top, to be like "icing", and that sort of failed! i ended up having to move them before the chocolate had fully set, so they looked sort of gross, even though they tasted fabulous!
mmmm, yummy!
in addition those, i also made the most amazing things EVER! the fabulous batgirl, AKA Lori, made these cheesecake stuffed strawberries and posted them on craftster.org. i didn't even know that you could buy cheesecake mix! they're so easy, and so incredibly yummy!
it was a really awesome picnic, and i was pretty proud of myself for trying something new!
