BBQ Dinner Recipes and Kerplunk Game

We had us some real fun on Pioneer Day! We had a BBQ feast, which included such things as grilled teriyaki chicken, grilled pineapple skewers, grilled zucchini, grilled corn on the cob (lots of grilled things for Bob to keep track of), fruit salad, crab pasta salad, and I believe that's about all we could hold on our plates. I think in all, I tried four new Pinterest recipes, and all four were keepers. Yay! So, I'll share my version of those here. I have no photos of any of the food because it was scarfed to fast. We sat down and literally devoured it all. Which is a good thing. I hate to have a fridge full of leftovers!

First...

5-Star Grilled Teriyaki Chicken (from Six Sisters' Stuff)

1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 cup teriyaki sauce
1/4 c. lemon juice
sprinkle of garlic powder
2 t. sesame oil

Place chicken in bowl, mix the teriyaki sauce, lemon juice, garlic powder and sesame oil in a separate bowl, and then pour over chicken. Make sure all the chicken is coated, cover bowl, and refrigerate for 8-12 hours. Be sure to toss the chicken every couple of hours so that the chicken continues to be coated.

Turn grill to high heat. Place chicken on grill, and discard marinating sauce. Grill chicken for 6-8 minutes on each side, or until juices run clear when chicken is pierced with a fork.


Fruit Salad (from Lilluna.com)

1 medium seedless watermelon, cubed
2 pints of strawberries, sliced
3 c. grapes
1/3 c. dry vanilla pudding mix

Put all of the fruit together in a bowl. Sprinkle pudding mix over the top of everything, and gently stir to coat all pieces. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

The pudding mix works with the juices to make a nice little glaze, and it helps to sweeten the strawberries.


Grilled Corn on the Cob

corn cobs
olive oil
1 cup feta cheese
1/4 c. fresh chopped cilantro
sea salt, to taste
pepper, to taste

Huck and clean corn. Brush olive oil lightly onto the cobs. Mix 1 cup feta cheese, fresh chopped cilantro, sea salt and pepper together and spread on a plate. Place corn on a medium high grill, and grill til the corn seems tender and cooked. When done, roll the cobs in the feta and cilantro mix on the plate, and serve. It was also good to cut the grilled corn off the cobs, then take a scoopful of the feta mixture and mix in with the corn. Yum.


Grilled Caramelized Pineapple (from Six Sisters' Stuff)

fresh pineapple chunks (cut from one pineapple)
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. butter, melted
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. vanilla extract
1 T. honey
wooden or metal skewers

Place four pineapple chunks onto each skewer. Mix together brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, vanilla, and honey. Place skewered pineapple on a large pan. Using a brush, glaze each piece of pineapple with the brown sugar mixture.

Place skewers on a medium-high grill. Cook for 5-10 minutes on each side, or just until the sugar-glaze starts to caramelize. Serve warm.


Crab Pasta Salad (from Sugar n' Spicegals)

12 oz. medium shell pasta, cooked
1 pound crab, imitation (shredded with a fork)
1 c. chopped celery
8 eggs (hard-boiled and diced)
1 c. mayonnaise
1 c. sour cream
sprinkle of onion powder
2 t. sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Mix the mayo, sour cream, onion powder, sugar, salt and pepper together till creamy. Set aside. In a large bowl, gently stir the pasta, crab, celery and eggs. Add the mayo and sour cream mixture. Taste to see if it has enough salt and pepper. Refrigerate until you serve.


Giant Kerplunk Game

After we ate, we all retired to play our new giant Kerplunk game that Bob and I built. There are some great instructions on thisoldhouse.com. If you are making one, you'll want to use that as a reference for sure. We changed it up a bit and did things our own way, but it turned out pretty much the same.

Of course we had to test it out before everyone came over, with a first-ever game. It was actually really fun!

We started with our circles (which Bob cut with his laser machine, but the original instructions show you how to do it with a jigsaw). I glued and clamped the wood circles together.

And then it was time to paint them. A couple days after this photo, I got around to spray-painting the legs blue, too. The blue is the bottom ring, and the red is the top.

We bought the coated chicken wire from Home Depot. I wish we could have bought our small chunk that we needed, but we had to buy a whole roll. So, if you are making one of these, come on by for a chunk of chicken wire.

And here are some of my darlings playing the game. We all got into the action, and had a few great rounds.

We got the dowels from Home Depot, also, and just cut them exactly in half. We have gobs of dowels, but it makes it kind of fun to have so many. I got the balls years ago from Target, but picked up some more from Home Depot, so we have tons more than what shows in the photo here.

We're going to take this up to our family reunion, and have some fun with it there, and then I'm sure we'll be using it for Activity Days, Young Women, Scouts, and more family things! This was a great, cheap project!

Once again, Thanks Love, for helping me with yet another project. Now, on to the next one....