4th of July Menu: Strawberry-Spinach Salad, Buffalo Wings, and Strawberry Shortcakes

For 4th of July weekend, I wanted to make some American-y/patriotic-colored foods. I decided on these three recipes:

1. Strawberry-Spinach Salad- This recipe is mainly spinach, with strawberries, kiwis, and jicama tossed in. It also includes a recipe for honey-dijon dressing, which I am super excited to learn how to make. I think making my own dressing will make me much more likely to want to eat salads. I grew up in the country and our salads consisted of homegrown lettuces with my mom's homemade dressing. Ever since, I can hardly choke down a bag salad with store-bought dressing. Things foreign to me in this recipe: jicama. I have heard of it, and from the picture it looks like a potato-ish thing that will add some crunch to the salad, kind of like a water chestnut. We'll see if I can find one at H-E-B!

2. Buffalo Wings- Shane and I crave buffalo wings often, and would like to go to Buffalo Wild Wings (a sports bar with delicious wings) more often. However, we live on a meager budget, and the only sport we like to watch is mixed martial arts. This leaves us with limited opportunities. This recipe includes raw chicken (yikes!), as well as a recipe for bleu cheese dressing, which I am stoked about. Maybe it's working in public health, maybe it's just my natural "prissiness," as my mom would say, but I freaking don't like touching raw chicken. This is going to be an adventure. I will need to buy some kind of bleach-infused wet wipes and do a full rub down of the whole kitchen afterwards. Ew. But I am really looking forward to being able to make wings, as well as another type of salad dressing. Does anybody know what type of chicken you buy for this? Is it some special tiny chicken, or do you just buy normal wings and drumsticks?

3. Strawberry Shortcake- I am making this specifically because it looks patriotic. There is an apple crisp recipe that would probably be more American, but the strawberry shortcake is almost red, white, and blue! I could dye the shortcake and make it red, white, and blue... Hehe. This is also a good use of the rest of the strawberries from the salad, and a skill I learned from the chocolate mousse: whipped cream. I figured out that when you are making whipped cream, you add some granulated or powdered sugar to it so it tastes better.

Here goes! This is going to be quite interesting, buying raw ingredients at the grocery store and all. I have to touch the raw chicken package! Ew! The pink chicken juice seems like it's always leaking out of the wrinkles in the saran wrap on the back of those styrofoam trays. Maybe I'll put it in a veggie bag... My plan is to use the Checklist app on my iPhone, and while I'm doing my hardcore house cleaning I'll see which ingredients we have (which is likely not going to be much) and check those off. Then I'll be off to an adventure at the grocery store! I'm going to try to go one of the weekday nights this week, otherwise it will be utterly crazy with people getting ready for the 4th of July. Wish me luck!