Rain, Rain, Go Away! and it did!

It rained all night on Friday night, and when I got up at oh-too-early:30 on Saturday morning, outside it sounded like monsoon season in the tropical rainforest.
Drat.
Checked the Weather Channel, and it was supposed to clear off by lunchtime.
Time to roll the dice, and I continued with plans to do this dinner as a garden party.  My husband and I had a fundamental laspe of communication at around 11am, as he tried to explain to me that making people eat the supper in the cold rain would be frowned upon by the Gods of Hospitality. 
"What rain?  It's not going to rain."
"It's raining right now."
[I do the Jedi mind trick wave]
"There will be no rain."
And, then he went back out into the rain to finish getting the tables and chairs out of storage.
The rain stopped about 2pm, and the sun came out! Hooray!

So, the dinner went off without a hitch (well, maybe one small hitch).

Brisket, grilled jerk chicken, baked potato salad, Carolina slaw, corn on the cob, Mexican confetti salad, minature chocolate tarts, and pineapple upside-down cupcakes.  Yum!

So many of these recipes I will make again.  They turn out so well to feed many and are genuinely tasty.

The Carolina slaw recipe can be found here.

The pineapple upside-down cupcake recipe can be found here. 

The pineapple upside-down cupcakes were very yummy, and fairly photogenic, as well.

 I am making the mini chocolate tarts again this week, and will blog about those with pictures and recipe, as they are my own creation!

And now, the Mexican Confetti Salad!

This recipe is really simple and so darn tasty.  It's vegetarian, too!

Dressing:

• The juice of two fresh limes
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup safflower oil
• a couple spoons of sugar
• a handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
• a dash of salt

Ingredients:

• 1 can white shoepeg corn, drained
• 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can peeled petite diced tomatoes, drained and squeeze to remove as much liquid as possible
• About 1/4 to 1/2 cup minced sweet yellow onion.  Vidalia if you can get it!
• About 2 jalapenos, deseeded and minced
• About 3 large cloves of garlic, minced
• Optional, 2 avacadoes, peeled and diced small.

Mix the dressing in a separate bowl and play with the amounts until you get the sugar/vinegar to your taste.  The amounts I quoted above are approximate.
One you get your dressing to your liking, tastewise, dump all the other ingredients in a bowl, cover with the dressing, stir it up and refrigerate it for a couple hours.
Serve with tortilla scoops!