Fun food for the Fourth.

Silence Dogood here. The Fourth of July is coming, and that means picnics, grilling, food, and plenty of it! Do you know what you’re going to make? Potato salad, egg salad, deviled eggs, coleslaw? Maybe some pimiento cheese spread, refreshing gazpacho, or a big salad? How about a yummy summer squash casserole or crock of mac’n’cheese or a big vat of quick, crunchy hot-sweet refrigerator pickles?

Over the years we’ve been writing Poor Richard’s Almanac, I’ve posted a wealth of summertime recipes. We love them, and I think you will, too. So I’m going to do a post roundup here so you can find them. Just search the post title in our search bar at upper right. (Mind you, as I discovered, even if you type in the exact title, you may hit a few other posts before you get to the right one. But no worries—you can read the other posts and find even more great recipes, or just skip down to the one you’re looking for.)

I couldn’t decided how to organize this post—by type of food, or by post title with recipes listed for each post—so I’m going to do it both ways. That way, you can check out a post’s contents and see which ones appeal most to you, or look for a food (such as deviled eggs) and then see which posts have recipes for it. Either way, enjoy!

Let’s start with the posts themselves:

Perfect picnic fare: Silence’s Refrigerator Pickles, Caprese Salad, Quick Coleslaw, Deviled Blue Cheese Eggs

Time for potato salad: Mr. Hays’s Baked Potato Salad, Penn State’s American Flag Potato Salad, Janice Lichtenwalner Wetzel’s Favorite Potato Salad, Betty Lichtenwalner’s German Potato Salad, Mama Dip’s Southern-Style Potato Salad, Indian Potato Salad a la Silence

Silence makes coleslaw: Silence’s Green and Gold Slaw, Coleslaw with Cilantro and Scallions

Some eggcellent picnic fare: Silence’s Bedeviled Eggs, Delilah’s Egg Salad, Chard Quiche, Potato and Sugar Snap Salad, Veggies and Dips

Painless pickles, potato salad, and pimiento cheese spread: Mr. Hays’s Baked Potato Salad, Alice’s Primo Pimiento Cheese Spread, Silence’s Hot Sweet Refrigerator Pickles

Some celebratory salads: Silence’s Red, White and Blue Salad, Silence’s Simple Greek Salad, ‘Mater Madness

Super summer squash recipes: Silence’s Super Squash Casserole

The ultimate mac’n’cheese: Delilah’s Crock-Pot Macaroni and Cheese

A gazpacho rainbow: Silence’s Think Pink Gazpacho, White Gazpacho, Southwestern Yellow Gazpacho, Green Tomatillo Gazpacho, Red Garden Gazpacho, Red Bread Gazpacho with Avocado Salsa

Okay, let’s start again and list ’em by category:

Potato salad: Time for potato salad; Painless pickles, potato salad, and pimiento cheese spread; Some eggcellent picnic fare

Deviled eggs: Perfect picnic fare; Some eggcellent picnic fare

Coleslaw: Perfect picnic fare; Silence makes coleslaw

Egg salad: Some eggcellent picnic fare

Veggies and dips: Some eggcellent picnic fare

Pimiento cheese: Painless pickles, potato salad, and pimiento cheese spread 

Refrigerator pickles: Perfect picnic fare; Painless pickles, potato salad, and pimiento cheese spread

Salads (other than coleslaw and potato and egg salad): Perfect picnic fare; Some celebratory salads

Summer squash casserole: Super summer squash recipes

Macaroni and cheese: The ultimate mac’n’cheese

Gazpacho: A gazpacho rainbow

You’ll find a few recipe repeats as you look through these posts, since some recipes are so good and so appropriate I wanted to make sure they were available during picnic season. I know you’re going to love them! And please, share your Fourth of July favorites with us.

             ‘Til next time,

                         Silence