On Saturday night my friends had a BBQ at their new house and the first thing she said to me was “If you don’t like the food please don’t write about it on your Internet food thingy”. Well, I promised her I wouldn’t but since her food was so amazing, especially for hosting a fairly large group, I needed to write about it. I also have to mention how proud I am of this particular friend because there was a time when she limited her eating habits to frozen fish sticks so she has come a long way and I think is a pretty good cook.

She made 3 separate salads, had fresh buns, and her hubby bbq’d us some chicken breast on his new bbq. She pulled out a few more bowls from the fridge,  as the awesome host she is, she made some separate salads minus certain ingredients for those picky eaters. I don’t have any of the recipes yet so I can’t go into too much detail.

One salad she made was a bean salad with a Mexican taste to it. There was about 3 different kinds of beans, corn, cilantro, with a Mexican lime dressing. I really enjoyed the textures of the different beans with the tang of the dressing. I think this salad went over well with everyone and was a nice change from your regular type of bbq salads (potato, macaroni, ect). This Mexican salad also went great with the beergaritas I was drinking. Read my beergarita post. This time I made them on the rocks, without salt, and added triple sec which finished them off perfectly.

Another salad she made was a basic vegetable salad. She simply cut up a variety of vegetables and added a salad dressing similar to Italian. I think doing a vegetable salad is a must do for any bbq or party because a lot of times people get caught up in serving meat or starchy foods and we forget about serving vegetables. A veggie platter can go over well with party’s too but a salad is something different and even slightly healthier since we’re not dipping or slathering the veggies in ranch dip.

The third salad she made was probably the most popular and I have since begged her for the recipe. It was a Greek style pasta salad, but not your typical Greek salad, it was better. She also added spinach to it and lots of feta. It was creamy, but not overly creamy and had peppers, grape tomatoes and olives on the side. The olives on the side was because there were a couple of people who don’t prefer olives and it was just easier for us olive lovers to add them instead of the others picking them out. What a great host! As soon as I know the secret to this salad I will update the post to include a recipe. I think its a must do for any summer gathering or just a side for a regular dinner.

I must give props to her hubby too who bbq’d us some perfectly cooked chicken. He was modest and claimed the bbq sauce hid the fact that they weren’t cooked perfectly but they were. The chicken was still very juicy and had grill marks any foodie would love. Thanks again guys for having us over, we have a GREAT time!