Potluck Palooza

The company I work for had a potluck today for memorial day. I brought a side dish and a dessert. Side dishes can be tricky for potlucks I've come to realize, because cold food is easier to keep at work when you only have a microwave at your disposal for heating things up. But I decided to crockpot my side dish, so we'd have something warm. I also brought pie. I tend to like to bring cookies to things because I just love baking cookies, but with all the lemons gracing our tree in the backyard, a lemon meringue pie was hard to resist. I like to use a Martha Stewart recipe from her food magazine for my pie. It always turns out delicious!

Her recipe calls to follow part of a lemon curd recipe so here are links to both: Martha's Lemon Meringue Pie and Martha's Lemon Curd. For pie crust, I cheat and buy Marie Calendars already made crusts, because after all, I am a busy woman, and they come in two packs, and it's great reason to make another pie!

So here it is before the meringue

 And, of course, the final product!

Back to the side dish! It was just a calico beans recipe. If you've never made them, and you like baked beans, this is a great dish. A lot of the recipes online call for ground beef also, but the recipe I used did not. The beans are a great easy side dish for this potluck, but also great for when you're making something on the grill, whether it's hot dogs and burgers, or just some chicken breasts, and it's really easy, and clean up is a breeze when you use a crockpot liner (best invention ever).

Calico Beans

We don't have any special Memorial Day plans, so it was nice to have a little work gathering to celebrate the three day weekend!