Summer Entertaining: Beach Party

The sun is shining and there's not a cloud in the sky

It's the absolute perfect day for a summer party. And you're all invited

But before we get started, I'm going to head down to Let's Party here in Savannah

where my girlfriend Latisse is going to show me how to set the perfect party table

And then it's back to the kitchen to serve up my savory salmon salad

and everybody's favorite summer side dish, potato salad. But this one's made Italian style

And the next I'm fixing my delicious marinated tomatoes that I plucked fresh from the garden

And finally, what better way to enjoy the fruits of summer than with a fresh blueberry tart

So y'all pack up your beach blanket and don't forget your sunscreen. Because today we're cooking up a beach party

You know, the weather's getting warm and it's just, beach days are on the way

and I am so ready to party after that cold winter we had

And I've got some wonderful picnic items for you today. But not only are we going to jazz up our food

we're going to jazz up the decorations. So you'll want to come with me. Let's go. Let's get going

Now, when I throw my own summer fiesta, Let's Party is where I come to get all my party basics

They have tons of invitations, plates, napkins, and just a whole bunch of decorative pieces

And y'all know nothing says summer like all these beautiful bright colors

My friend Latisse is going to show me a fun way to help decorate my table for summer

A good tip she gave me was to pick out colors that can be reused again and again

Like this red you can reuse for the holidays. And yellow is great for both summer and fall

And I just couldn't believe this little trick. All she did was take two different colored napkins and tie them together with a colorful ribbon

And did you know she's using just an ordinary beach towel as a tablecloth

Never even thought of that, but what a great idea. The perfect thing about these decorations, though

is they're just so inexpensive and reusable. Thanks, Latisse. You've inspired me, girl

I can hardly wait to dress up my own summer fiesta. Latisse has really gotten me in a party mood at that store

She's got me some great things in this bag, and I hope I can do them justice. The dogs are out there just frolicking because they know I'm fixing to take them to the beach

They're so excited. But before we go to the beach, I want to show you one of my favorite summer salads, a salmon salad

and to go with it, Italian potatoes that are almost as good as my mashed potatoes

For this recipe, you can use your leftover salmon. If you've grilled salmon on the grill the night before

you can use it to make this salad with and make this meal just come together very fast and easy

And the first thing I'm going to do is add cucumbers that I've diced up

And then I've got red diced bell pepper. And we've got just a regular yellow onion

And to this we're going to sprinkle in a little cayenne. Now I'm not going to use too, too much

And I'm going to use a little salt. and then I'm going to add plain old mayonnaise to it

And we're just going to mix that up just like that. So all I'm going to do is take our salmon

and I'm just going to flake it. Now, I like mine in chunks

I don't want it as flaky as like canned tuna. So I'm going to just chunk this up just like that

Now, all we're going to do is take our eggs and my boiled eggs, I like to just crush them with my hands

Perfect. All right, now all we're going to do is fold in our mayonnaise and our vegetables

Now this is just a good basic simple recipe and you can jazz this up any way you like

But personally, I like simpler foods. I'm just a simple girl, so that's the way I like it

Now I'm gonna just squirt a little fresh lemon over it. Look how pretty that looks

See your big chunks of fish in there? Okay, so all I want to add to mine

is some fresh ground pepper. And I like lots of pepper with that. Perfect

Now I'm gonna move on to our Italian potatoes. These are great because you not supposed to refrigerate them after you get them ready So this is another one of those ideal dishes for picnicking So we just going to use these red potatoes

So all we're going to do is fill this up with hot water

And we're going to cook them until they're kind of fork tender. You can insert a knife in them, and if it goes all the way through, then they're ready

That's perfect. All right. And in the meantime, I'm going to slip our salmon onto our dish

The last time I made this, I used actually some leftover salmon that Michael had cooked on the grill

Maybe I need to taste it out of the bowl so they won't know I've been in that. That sounds like a plan, doesn't it

This is so good. The flavors are so simple. And when we come back, I'm going to show you how to finish up those Italian potatoes and

we're going to do marinated tomatoes. I'm going to show you how to turn even one of those yucky winter tomatoes into a delectable

summer tomato. Okay, if y'all are ready, I want to show you how to make the marinade for these tomatoes

We're going to start with three-fourths of a cup of vegetable oil, and we're going to

take fresh chopped parsley, a little sugar, a little garlic salt, and a little seasoning salt

You'll want to use a good brand. And really, I would prefer to use a fresh thyme, but I'm going to have to use my dried

And we're going to add a little red wine vinegar and a little black pepper

And we're just going to whisk that together. All right, we're going to take just regular tomatoes, and we're going to cut them into

wedges of six. And you could actually use the cherry tomatoes. All right, so we've got our tomatoes, and I'm going to give this another whisk

and I'm just gonna pour this over our tomatoes. This works good, too, if you put it in a jar

and shake it all up. That's real easy to manhandle. Now, I like a little green onions with mine

I like the color that it gives it. So I'm just gonna put a few tops in there

I'm gonna just toss this all together, and I'm gonna put this in the refrigerator

and I'm actually gonna let it marinate overnight. We're just gonna dump it in a bag

You know how during the winter you can count on them being pretty flavorless

Well, even that flavorless tomato is gonna be wonderful in this marinade

So all I have to do now is stick this in the fridge, and we're gonna move on to our Italian potatoes

Our potatoes should be ready. Oh yeah, they look good. Now I'm just gonna take these over here and drain them

Watch it, Gertie. I'm used to working around dogs and kids, so that's what I'm gonna do

Okay. With Gertie's help, I was able to do it. Okay. And we're just gonna take our potatoes

and cut them up into chunks. Now, I like these cut a little bit bigger

than what I would cut for a potato salad. I make these a little bit chunkier

Y'all know that I'm an old-timey home cook, and I might not always do things the way that they properly should be done

like cutting this in my hands, but I've done it so many years

and it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Ain't that right, Gertie

Yes, Gertie said yes. So if you cut your potatoes like I do, be careful

All right, let's start on the marinade now for the potatoes. We're going to start with a half a cup of tarragon vinegar

and a half a teaspoon of dried mustard, and we're going to do a tablespoon of Worcestershire

a pinch of salt, well, maybe two pinches, and fresh parsley and I've got some garlic cloves that I'm gonna mash them

just a little bit and slice them and put over in here Okay and I got three cloves of fresh garlic and I was just about to forget the sugar I gonna put oh gosh about a tablespoon in there I gonna put some black pepper

and then after this marinades on the counter, you can taste it and see if there's anything else that

you want to add to it. If you think it's a little flat for you, then come back and correct your

seasonings. All right, now I'm just going to pour that over. And some green onions

And I'm going to toss this around. And I don't know if you remember me telling you earlier

that we're actually going to let this sit out on the counter. You don't refrigerate this

And you could do it a minimum of four hours. And you'll want to come stir it about every hour

All right, now for the last step, I'm gonna put about a cup of olive oil over that

Now you could actually put your oil in with all your other ingredients

I just kind of like to pour it over there last. See how good that looks

I think I'm gonna dip me up a little to sample it, even though I know it hadn't been four hours

and I've had some tomatoes marinating overnight here. I'm gonna just put a few out here

These are so good, they have just soaked up all that wonderful marinade

I think I'm gonna take a little oregano and just kinda prop it up there

I think all these salads need now is maybe just Paula's lips

When we add the salmon salad, it's gonna make a fabulous cold plate

but y'all ain't seen the best part. Cause come back for fresh blueberry tarts

Ain't nothin' like a tart on the beach. All right, I'm getting this tart ready for the beach, and this is another one of those

easy, simple, but delicious recipes. Now, I was just chopping my pecans because I'm actually

going to press those down into our crust because they're just so good in the crust of this tart

Now I'm just putting flour into the food processor. And this is powdered sugar

And we can't have a tart without a little butter. All right

All right, I'm going to pulsate it. And we're going to hit this until it just forms a ball

All right. You can see the way it's formed itself into a ball

so it's ready to take out of there. And y'all be careful when you're removing your blades

from your food processor because you're terribly sharp. All right, now I want to talk about my pan for a minute

This is actually a quiche pan slash tart pan, and the bottom comes out so you're not going to be messed up

when you go to remove your tart from the pan. And this is nonstick, so I'm not even going to spray it

and I actually don't think it would need a lot of spray anyway because of all the butter

All we're gonna do is just put this in the pan and pat it out

The important thing is to get your crust even and get it pushed back into the little waves

All right, so I'm just gonna sprinkle those pecans around. I'm just gonna spread them out

All right, our pan's ready. Now I'm gonna put this into a preheated 350-degree oven

and we're gonna bake this for about 10 to 12 minutes. So I've got one that's already cooled over here and we're going to finish putting it together

See how pretty it browned and I can push up the bottom and you can see we're not going

to have any problems. You know sometimes when you make pies and you go to cut that first piece it's so hard

to get out. Well this is just real, real simple in the tart pan

Now all we're going to do is take two three ounce packages of cream cheese and some powdered

sugar and we're going to cream those together. Now you'll want your cream cheese to be at

room temperature so it won't be so hard to beat. Okie doke. And this is just powdered

sugar. Alright, now we're going to turn this on and I'm actually going to cover that just

for a few minutes so that powdered sugar won't go everywhere. Alright, now while that's beaten

Now, I've got some whipping cream, some sweetened whipped cream that we're going to fold into

this and put it into our tart pan All right so I going to blow it out for a minute and try to keep that powdered sugar

in there. Yeah and it's coming along. Our cream cheese actually could have been maybe just a little bit softer

All right. All right, so we're just going to fold in our whipped cream until we get that nice and incorporated

And it may take a minute because that cream cheese is a little stiffer than the whipped cream

Okay, now I've got the cream cheese incorporated. So we're just going to come over here

All right, and we're just going to spread that over those nice toasted pecans

Now you can pack this up and take this to the beach just like this

and it might transport easier if you do it this way. And then when you get there, you can add your blueberry pie filling to the top of it

I can't wait that long. This is an ordinary blueberry pie filling

So doesn't that look delicious? All right, we've got this all ready, and I'm going to stick this one in the refrigerator

and let it set because that whipping cream is still just a little soft

But I've got another one ready. Right here. Oh, my goodness, that's so pretty

And let's see how easy this one's going to come out. Look at that. Isn't that great

It's actually prettier than a pie, isn't it? I just love doing tarts once in a while

Oh, and I'm going to have to sample this one, and I'm going to be very, very careful

Okay, I think I've gotten him pretty loose. All right, let's see if we have any luck getting him coming out clean

Mm, and I don't know why I'm bothering garnishing him. You know I'm fixing to have me a piece

I think I'm going to put a little whipped cream on top of him. Oh, a quick, easy cross between a cheesecake and a pie

Oh, that crust was nice and crispy. It's just delicious. I just love those pecans

Mm-mm-mm. Y'all stick around because when we come back, I'm going to show you how to make a chaser

for this blueberry tart. Now we can't have a day at the beach

without something really tasty to drink. So I have mixed up a quick punch

It's one part cranberry juice, one part vodka, one-part peach tree snobs to three parts of pineapple juice

So in order to transport this to the beach, I have these cute little cups

Now, I'm not going to fill it all the way up to the top because we're going to put these in the freezer

and it comes with great little lids with a hole in the top

for these cute little straws. Now, I'm actually going to freeze them with a straw in it

so it'll already have the hole there, and the straw will slip right back down in it

After it's frozen, I'm gonna take the straw out and I'm gonna cover the top with Saran Wrap

and put the lid back on. In fact, I have some that's already done here

You just come in and put the Saran Wrap on them, snap the lid back on, throw them in your cooler

and they're gonna help keep our food nice and chilled. Now, not only are these cocktails

going to keep our food cold. I've also got some frozen water here in the freezer that I'm going

to throw in the cooler to help keep our food cold. And don't forget, if you're taking the

chilling to the beach, throw them in plenty of flavored sodas and ice waters and orange juices

because the beach can get awfully hot and make you thirsty. I wanted y'all to see the final menu

before I packed it away in our basket. The salmon salad and the marinated tomatoes

and the Italian potatoes and that blueberry tart, they make for a fabulous beach celebration

And the colored paper plates and the cute little napkins are just adorable

So I can't hardly wait to get the dogs and the chilling and get out on the beach

We're going to have a great time today. And so until next time, America

I send y'all best dishes and love from my beach picnic to yours