Mother's Day Pain-free Menu

I'm deliberately posting this today -- because it's Memorial DAY weekend -- and this is the perfect, PAIN FREE way to feed a bunch of people.  Because one of the menus I HATE -- but everybody acts like it's so simple -- is hamburgers and hotdogs "on the grill".  For me, that meal is always a luke-warm disappointment. You have to have a station for all the stuff that goes with it -- catsup, mustard, pickles, chopped onions...ugh...by the time everybody gets their stuff prepared, the meat is cold...or the buns are. 

So -- if you have a grillmaster in your home -- send him out to MAKE RIBS...(I don't have a recipe for this -- it was totally John's job.  Remember -- that's the beauty!)

Once I had established IN MY OWN HEAD what the real Mother's Day mission was -- (Me, not standing in my kitchen for two days, feeling unappreciated)...

The menu was:

1. Smoked ribs (which I never touched)
2. Baked Potatoes (regular and sweet potatoes)
3. Coleslaw (two bags of coleslaw mix)
4. Cowboy Beans (mostly, you open cans)
5. THE Green salad (Jeanne brought this -- again, NO WORK FOR ME)
6. Pineapple Dream Cake (Lilly did it all, I was only the mentor...it was fun)

Most of that is self-explanatory...and it was all delicious. And SIMPLE. The secret to delicious Cowboy Beans is Bush's Southern Pit Barbeque beans

This can of beans is seriously delicious...it needs no real fixin'

But, since it was Mother's Day -- I wanted the beans to be extra-special. I fried up half a pound of bacon and a large onion...then, I threw in some leftover frozen taco meat...three other cans of beans (kidney beans, lima beans and black beans). I put all of it in my large crock pot in the morning...and set it on low. At 3:00, the beans were PERFECT.

I'm telling you -- the beans were A BIG HIT..!!

For dessert,Lilly and I made one of Mom's favorite things -- a Pineapple Dream Cake. https://www.bigoven.com/recipe/pineapple-dream-cake/231239

We baked the yellow cake mix in a half-sheet pan so it would be thin...then, the pudding/cool whip/pineapple layer is as thick as the cake. My Mom loved this cake...Hey -- it was the 60's!! I think Cool Whip was new.

So, Mother's Day was really good for me this year. I simplified all of it...remember the KISS rule...

 Keep It Simple, Stupid..!!