Memorial Day Backyard Bash with ConAgra #BackyardBash

If you’ve followed us on Facebook, then you might have seen that it snowed on Memorial Day weekend. That’s right – there was about an inch of snow on Sunday morning which made me wonder whether our planned Memorial Day BBQ would have to be held in the middle of snow flurries. Fortunately, the weather warmed up and we were able to have an amazing Backyard Bash on Memorial Day.

When it comes to planning what foods to eat, I’ve recently started paying more attention to where my foods come from. Knowing the true “path to purchase”, from ground or ranch to the store shelf, can say a lot about the quality of the food you’re purchasing. For our Backyard Bash, we used product where we knew about the ingredients from Farm to Fork. For example, Hunt’s tomatoes are grown in California, right here in the USA. They are just good tomatoes without any artificial ingredients or preservatives. Egg Beaters are made with 100% real eggs – simple, clean, and totally makes sense. Chef Boyardee is actually a real person, who began serving his delicious sauce and pastas in a restaurant in Ohio. Thank goodness he’s expanded. 😉

To kick off the party, I baked up a Braided Spaghetti Loaf. Made with Chef Boyardee’s Spaghetti and Meatballs, this was an amazingly easy dish to prepare and it got rave results. Friends declared “you need to keep this recipe on file!” Before the loaf had a chance to cool off, almost half of it was sliced and ferried out of sight to be eaten. Delicious!

I had originally intended to serve the Chicken Bruschetta, using Hunt’s tomatoes, as an appetizer, but I had forgotten to thaw the chicken ahead of time. That didn’t stop me, though. I thawed it for a few minutes in the microwave and then threw it on the grill.

A few minutes later, these became the “after-dinner” appetizer. The tomatoes were a fresh and delicious topping on top of the toasted Italian bread. This was another winner that got compliments from full mouths.

Finally, we wrapped up our meal with some home-baked chocolate chip cookies. This was the first time I’d baked with Egg Beaters and I was impressed by how delicious the cookies were. Since Egg Beaters are made with 100% all natural egg whites, they are a lower cholesterol alternative to cooking that just whole eggs.

Before our backyard bash ended, we all gathered around a special remembrance box (aka time capsule), where each of us would put something special inside – something to remember this moment, this time in our lives. The box goes into a hole in the yard, with the location marked by wildflowers that we’ll start off in our Hunt’s Diced Tomatoes can and then transplanted over the box. The plan is for everyone to meet back here for Memorial Day 2017 so we can open the box and remember the “good ‘ole days.”

At the end of the day, Memorial Day was wonderful – good food, good company, good times.

If you’re looking for some more tasty and easy recipes to prepare, check out the www.ReadySetEat.com website for tons of recipes you can cook in minutes without needing to know any rocket science at all.

ConAgra Foods Online

Disclaimer: I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of ConAgra and received products to facilitate my review and a promotional item to thank me for my participation.