Use the provided menu and step-by-step lists to keep organized.
Setting the Menu
With a house to clean and shopping to complete, you'll want a simple-to-fix but extraordinary menu.
Gameplan
8 hours before the party:
- Invite guests to the 'cue and ask them to bring a beverage or favorite side. Be sure at least one person is bringing each of the basics: soda, beer, and wine.
- Make a shopping list. Your menu needs just 12 ingredients: Flank steak (estimate 4 to 6 ounces per person), unshucked fresh corn, cornflakes, corn syrup, chocolate syrup, roasted peanuts, peanut butter, frozen lemonade, frozen sweetened strawberries, vanilla ice cream, vodka and crushed ice.
- Check pantry for steak marinade ingredients. Add anything that's missing to your shopping list and go shopping.
- Pick up bright colored bandanas, bubble wands, colored chalk, and balloons at a party or discount store.
- Give the house a quick clean-up.
- Assemble Tin Roof Sundae ice cream pie. Cover and freeze.
4 hours before the party:
- Make marinade. Add steak and place in refrigerator.
- Pull out and dust off the patio furniture. Clean the grill.
- Gather plates and beverage glasses. Wrap flatware in bandanas; bandanas can double as napkins and be used in relay races for kids.
- Put the 2 ingredients for Easy Strawberry Lemonade--frozen lemonade and frozen sweetened strawberries--in the refrigerator to thaw. Chill vodka.
- Set up a crafts table for kids with crayons, watercolor paints, paper, scissors, magazines and labels for name tags.
As guests arrive:
- Greet guests with homemade Strawberry Lemonade. Let adults spike lemonade with vodka. Offer crushed ice to kids for a slushier drink.
- Bring kids to the craft table and let them decorate nametags for themselves. Offer each child a bubble wand, large or small, to keep them busy.
- Ask older kids to organize games of hopscotch, a balloon toss, or relay races. Let younger kids draw, paint or make collages using pictures cut out from magazines.
- Put corn on the grill to cook; it will take 30 minutes.
- When corn is done, keep it on indirect heat on the grill and cook steak.
- Slice steak and place on serving platter. Let guests help themselves to steak, corn, and sides.
- Pull ice cream pie out of the freezer 30 minutes before serving. Pass extra chocolate syrup and roasted peanuts for garnishing.