Looking for a dish to bring to family reunion!

My husband's family reunion is in mid-August, under similar conditions. They gather on property that belonged to my husbands great grandparents, which is off road in the middle of nowhere, with a very small covered shelter, beside their family cemetery---no electricity and no running water. I always prepare meatballs in chili sauce, and bake pies. The family still brings dishes like potato salad and cole slaw, but use tightly covered bowls packed in coolers and covered with ice. Those foods stay in the covered cooler and you serve yourself directly from the containers inside the cooler; everything is always very cold and no one has ever gotten food poisoning. They've been doing it this way for over 40 years.

Brownies. Cookies.

I would take a macaroni salad and just keep it in an ice chest. Or you could do a pasta salad with Italian dressing. Or something like corn bread (though that's not a dish).

Fresh corn salad. They have several recipes on the Kraft website.

I have a family reunion in late August. I plan on making a cold corn and black salad with a basil lime vinaigrette.

No measurements really. Corn, black beans rinsed very well, onion, green, yellow, and red pepper. Mix together and coat in a bail lime vinaigrette. I've never kept a recipe for the vinaigrette so I usually pick one from a Google search, or if I'm really lazy and the grocery store is carrying it, Maple Grove Farms makes an awesome fat free basil lime dressing that I'll use.

Nice and light and vegan which is most appreciated by a couple of my family members.

beans and franks

mac and cheese

Hot German Potato salad.

Under these circumstances, you need coolers and bags of ice. Then you can decide what to bring. Taco salad, fruit salad, pasta salad even with a dressing instead of mayo tastes better chilled. Plus drinks, water, etc. Coolers are a must during the Summer. Have a good time.

Hi, Robin,

This is a family favorite that does really well in the heat, although keeping it on ice is nice, too. I have modified this recipe a little from the original newspaper clipping many years ago.

To make it 'look pretty', the originators dressed the top of the dish with salami slices rolled into cones and little parsley sprigs tucked inside, creating a kind of pinwheel on the top, totally unnecessary but fun if you're feeling particularly celebratory.

What I like about this is that it is not sweet, but has those delicious Mediterranean flavors in the dressing that really make the dish. I have substituted cauliflower pieces for the garbanzo beans, and that's nice, too. The original recipe called for pimentos, but we prefer the roasted red peppers. So, an option:

Delicious Cold Beans

l6-oz can garbanzo beans
32-oz can red kidney beans
16-oz can pinto beans
1/2 c green onions, chopped, including tops
1/2 c chopped roasted red peppers
3/4 c vegetable oil
1/3 c wine vinegar
1 T lemon juice
1 t oregano, dried
1/2 t basil, dried,
1/2 t dill weed, dried
1/2 t salt
1/2 t ground black pepper
Dash Tabasco Sauce
Parsley

Drain beans. In a large bowl combine beans; stir in green onion and pimento. In a jar combine oil, vinegar, lemon juice and seasonings. Shake well and pour over vegetables. Cover and chill several hours. At serving time drain mixture and heap into salad bowl. Can be garnished with salami slices folded in half and rolled into rosettes with sprig of parsley in each. Place around rim of salad bowl. Serves 6-8