Freedom

by Posted on

By Edith
North of Boston

[Jason Allen-Forest is the winner of yesterday’s giveaway!]

Happy Independence Day, everybody! Americans celebrate this day in many ways. For most of us it’s full summer weather, a time for gathering outdoors with family and friends, a day to appreciate that armed militia aren’t patrolling our streets and that we have some important rights and liberties.

And, of course, it’s a day for eating grilled food, delectable salads, refreshing desserts. In New England, if we’re lucky, the first cherry tomatoes and cucumbers are coming ripe. My favorite salad is a true Greek salad that I make like this:Greek salad

  1. Cut cherry tomatoes (preferably gold ones) in half.
  2. Cube a fresh cucumber, with skin on if it’s a thin-skinned variety.
  3. Cube some feta cheese.
  4. Combine it all with some Kalamata olives, a handful of fresh oregano, and then drizzle olive oil on top.
  5. Serve with a sliced baguette for dipping in the sauce made by all those yummy ingredients. (Note: this picture includes onions ,which I personally would omit!)

Grilled shrimpFor grilling? l like to skewer and grill shrimp that I marinated with lime juice, olive oil, chopped fresh cilantro, and a dash of habanero sauce. Or boneless chicken breasts dry rubbed with cumin, chili powder, salt, and a touch of coriander.

And dessert: it pretty much has to be red, white, and blue, right? The simplest dish would be local strawberries and blueberries mixed with a spoonful of sugar 4th of july cakeand a quarter cup of cognac served over vanilla ice cream. You can go all out and make a cheesecake topped with the same fruit mix, or a sheet cake with cream cheese frosting and strawberries and blueberries lined up like an American flag.

Whatever you cook today, wherever you celebrate, the Wicked Cozy Authors raise a glass for our freedom – yours and ours – to blog, to write, to debate the questions of the day without fear of recrimination or arrest. Happy 4th!

What’s your favorite Independence Day food? And what will you be doing today to celebrate?

Edith Maxwell writes the Local Foods Mystery series, the Speaking of Mystery series, short crime fiction, and possibly the John Greenleaf Whittier mysteries, too!

Published by Edith Maxwell

Agatha Award -winning author Edith Maxwell writes the historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries (Beyond the Page) and short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she writes the Country Store Mysteries series, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the Cece Barton Mysteries (all from Kensington Publishing). She lives north of Boston in an antique house with her beau and cat Martin, where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook.

6 Thoughts

  1. Your recipes look so good! I don’t know that I have a particular food for the 4th. But when I was growing up, we didn’t have money for things like soda or chips but on the 4th we were allowed some soda. Two times a year we were able to have soda – Independence Day and the last day of harvest. So I like to have soda and chips, things I really don’t have often.

    1. I know what you mean, Elaine! When I was growing up, we only had real button on Christmas and Thanksgiving, otherwise it was margarine. Thanks for stopping by!

  2. I think my new favorite Independence Day food will be this cake!! Looks amazing. We’ll have shrimp kabobs today, probably with a fruit smoothie!

  3. We are going having dinner with friends. Ken is a fantastic cook and I can’t wait to see what he has planned. I’m in charge of dessert which is a brownie base, topped with raspberry jam, fresh raspberries, and then a combination of cream cheese, powdered sugar, and white chocolate. Then decorated with more fresh raspberries!

  4. Although she is an Aussie, as am I, my niece’s birthday is on the 4th July (yesterday for us). She loves the US connection. PS. There’s nothing on that brownie base, including the brownie, that I don’t like. Can I come over for dinner? I’ll bring a pavlova. 🙂

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