Be Well: How to Execute the Perfect Backyard BBQ

<div class="block">Are you planning a backyard BBQ this summer? Check out these tips from Andrea Correale, president of Elegant Affairs, about best food options and stellar presentation. </div>

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This time to elevate your next backyard gathering. I cannot believe this spread that I'm looking at here. So Andrea from elegant affairs, talk me through what you've come up with because it just, I mean, it's visually stunning. It's visually stunning, but anybody can do this at home. So instead of putting out a big bowl of salad, these are individual salad bundles. So you take a tomato, you hollow them out, you stuff it with greens, then you put the edible flowers on top and the dressing on the side and everybody takes one and puts them on their plate. Oh, wow. So really? Really? It's really, I mean, it look at that, aren't they fun? So everybody takes one. You can have a variety of cut the bottom off, just cut the bottom off, hollow it out, hollow it out and that's all there is to it. Ok. Now this, these are boozy pops. So it's a little bit of champagne. You can buy ice pops in the grocery store, then you can pour a little Prosecco, put the ice pop in and this could be passed when guests first arrive. It's a, if it's a hot day or you can use it as a dessert item that you can come out on a tray and bring the boozy pops who call them boozy pops and everybody will love them. I mean, that looks and, and these glasses because you don't wanna have glass outside. These are all acrylic. You can buy them online, you can get them really anywhere and they look, they look nice, they look dirty. Right. They're not like those the, the cheapy plastic cups. Ok. Now, what's this? Ok. These are waffle and chicken cones. So you can make little chicken bites. You fill them with waffles. And then what I like to do is put them out as a station and then put maple syrup on the side. You can put ranch dressing on the side. You can really put an array of toppings so people can really make their own cone. Amazing. Now, this is so cute. Ok. So this is instead of fresh fruit. So instead of fresh fruit, we did a melon baller, we made little melon balls and we found these little pretty cups again online. Amazon, this the polka dot cups. We have the pink cup fit for the watermelon, the green cup for the honey dew and then the orange cup for the cantaloupe. And you can put these out, people can grab and graze, you can pass them around. But it's a really fun way to, that's what's so great about everything is that I can just pick it up and I don't, and it's still fruit, you have to put out a fruit platter, but this is a much better way to put out the fruit platter. Absolutely. And then you get what you actually want is exactly. Exactly. OK. This looks awesome. OK. So this is if you're having people over for dinner for 12, let's say you can grill the chicken on the barbecue, then put the rice, the cheddar, the tortillas. And you can make one big pan of a Mexican fajita dish and you just take the whole pan, you put it right in the center of the table and everybody can just grab it. So that's a really easy way. And I feel like that would be great for clean up too. You want to clean up and you're elevating your barbecue, right? And that's what's so great about it is that this is, so this is a uh tomato soup. It's really easy to make you saute some onions, you mix in your tomato and all your fresh herbs, you put it in the blender and then you serve it. It's a cold soup. This is great to serve when guests first come in, it's really delicious and it's a great appetizer. And again, this is, this is a plastic, that's also plastic. OK? Now this, this looks yum, OK. So first here are lemon sorbet cups. So you have to take your lemons, you cut them in half, you take out all of the insides, then you take an ice cream scoop. You put the sorbet in the scoop in the lemon and then you put a little piece of mint on top and there you have it sorbet lemon cups. I love that. Yeah. And I mean, this is like a, it is a great way to serve Smores. So these cookie cups are difficult to make. But Wilton has a, a mold where you just kind of put the cookie dough into the mold, you put it into the oven, it makes the cup and then I filled this with nutella and also with some marshmallows. And I took a little butane torch and I made them a little crispy on top. So then you have like a cookie Smores, right? And I, I mean, it's look at the size of this. It's like perfect. It's perfect. I so you can eat the cookie, you can eat it with a spoon. You don't have to eat the cookie. You have a bunch of choices. OK? That's awesome. And is that a churro? It looks like these are churros? The reason why I put these out is because if you're in a jam, you can take out any Mexican restaurant and get churros and everybody loves them. So we put them in a little cup with some caramel on the bottom. We put out the churros, you can dip the churros in the caramel. It is so delicious. And again, you can just order these, you don't have to make them a piece of cake. Ok. Now, this looks like this is an appetizer. These are anti pasty cones, you make the cones with construction paper and then instead, instead of putting out a cheese board, which everybody puts out, you make these individual cones and you have cheese and Sciutto Italian meats. You have some breadsticks, you have a sprig of rosemary and the cones are just made with construction paper. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, very simple. And now what's up with the watermelon? Ok. So this is a watermelon pizza because you see, you can kind of move the pieces along. This is a Greek one and I put on kalamata olives. I put tomatoes, pickled onions. You could put a balsamic glaze on top and it really is delicious. It's like having a watermelon salad, but it's a pizza, right? And now, but not least. Ok, it's a cookie in the forest. It's just cookie in the forest. So you put the sticks in with while you're baking the cookies. OK. They come out of the oven just like this. I got a little piece of wheat grass from my local florist and I put them in there. So it's a cookie garden. I mean, this is just amazing. I think any one of these ideas, people would say it's easy, easy, easy, easy, easy, easy. If you say so. Oh, come on, you can do this. I believe I can, I believe I can.