Rubbed down the yardbird thighs for the grill/smoker later today and finished a nice Penne pasta salad with Hearts of Palm, roasted peppers, Roma Tomatoes, chunks of fresh Mozzarella, fresh basil leaves and lightly mixed with a homemade roasted garlic and Balsamic dressing. The key to this pasta salad is NOT to over dress it with the dressing....just enough to make the kosher salt, fresh cracked black pepper and grated Asiago cheese stick to it.....
The yardbird thighs get rubbed down with homemade rub then placed on a grill on low heat after smoking some wood chips and cooked slowly enough to pick up a decent amount of smoky flavor. I don't have a smoker so I actually turn the grill on and off several times to allow the chicken to pick up as much smoke flavor as possible without over cooking or drying out the chicken. They're then placed on a baking sheet and brushed down with some spicy homemade BBQ sauce and allowed to "sit" in convection oven at 250 degrees for about 35 minutes...
Other than that were going to make some skillet fried potato's, Hot Dogs for the kids, some fresh made onion dip and chips and store bought ice cream and petite fours for dessert . Keepin it simple this 4th of July.