Stylish 4th of July Entertaining

I’m so excited to share this beautiful and stylish 4th of July entertaining post with you guys today. It’s got simple DIY projects, recipes to go with our color theme, a delicious summer drink and an elegant tablescape. Cool right? I wanted to keep it simple and just bring out the patriotic colors through flowers and food. And the best way to do that was with a clean crisp white background.

THE TABLE
I made two watercolor patterns to use as placemats. I wanted to keep them subtle but give some contrast between the table and plates. I also made watercolor place cards with same shade of blue which I used for the mats and finally a bouquet of beautiful red roses. You can download the prints for free! at the end of this post.

THE FOOD
I kind of wanted to go for the brunch vibe and so I chose to do three appetizers instead of a main course, desserts and drinks.
Appetizers:
1) Savory Potatoes over Salty Multigrain crackers – I’m using the mini purple potatoes for this. Boil and mash the potatoes. Add chopped red onions, salt, pepper, paprika and little lemon juice. Make small scoops and top the crackers. You could use any flavor of crackers you like but I like the salty or cheesy ones for this particular dish. And finally top with sliced cherry tomatoes.
2) Beet with Soy Vinaigrette and cheese – Blanch the beets and cut then in small triangular pieces. For the vinaigrette mix a 1 tbsp of soy sauce, 1 tbsp of agave, 1/2 tbsp of rice wine vinegar, salt and pepper. I used a Wisconsin cheese with mango and jalapeno pieces. However you could use any cheese of your choice. Goat cheese and feta go perfectly well too. Remember this beet napoleon post I did ? It is very similar to this one.
3) Purple Cabbage salad with Almonds and Berries – A simple cabbage slaw with a lemon vinaigrette. Chop up some purple cabbage, add toasted almonds, cheese and some fresh strawberries. For the vinaigrette combine olive oil, lemon juice salt and pepper. You could also do a yogurt based vinaigrette with this salad too.
Dessert:
Raspberry Meringue Crumble – This is a basic meringue recipe. Egg whites, sugar and vanilla extract beaten till stiff peaks are formed. Then just gently fold in chopped raspberries before putting the mixture in the piping bag. I made bite size discs. Bake at 250 degrees.

THE DRINK
This is a great summer time lemonade recipe. It was also perfectly fitting the color theme of the table. And I love lychees so I’ll take any opportunity to use them. Mix 2 cups grapefruit juice, 1 cup lychee juice, 1/2 cup lemon juice and simple syrup. The amount of simple syrup would depend on the sweetness of the lychee juice since it is very sweet. So taste the mixture before you add that. I will soon be sharing a cocktail version of this recipe on the blog. Also, in case you don’t find Lychee juice, you could substitute it with fresh orange juice.

If you like the prints of the placemats used above, you can download them here! They could be used as desktop wallpapers or art prints too.
Placemat Polka Dot Print , Placemat Leaves Print