This post contains a link to sponsored content written in partnership with Riceland Foods, the world’s largest miller and marketer of rice and grown by famers in Arkansas and Missouri. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

It’s still early in the morning and I hear the sound of kids playing outside. If I strain my neck and look out my office window to the left, I see two barefoot kids running around in my neighbor’s backyard. Not a care in the world. Today is a day of possibilities for them, I imagine. No thoughts to all the shoulds that should get done today or the chores that are always beckoning. Dennis is enjoying the great benefits of a day off… sleeping in. Me? Well, I have this thing about quiet dark mornings and nothing much is better than having a silent office to myself where I can write and just chill.

A bass boat skims by and I wonder if today is the day when the ski boats rip open and shrilling laughter fills the air? If so, summer officially starts to today and not in June.

For the first time since forever, we don’t have any set-in-stone Memorial Day plans. I suspect that once Dennis wakes up and we sit on the back porch sipping our coffee and talking about the day, we will start making phone calls and arranging our own boat day with the family. I’m usually pretty organized with planning family events so this is new for me. Are you a planner? Do you have big plans for today with family and friends?

What do you do when you don’t have any plans but want to have a quintessential summer grilling day? You go shopping! Either in your pantry, your fridge, your freezer, or at the closest store where you can get in-and-out and get on with your day!

May I suggest keeping it simple? Grill burgers with a side of baked beans and coleslaw and chips and dips for the nibblies? Wait, skip the coleslaw. Coleslaw really needs to be made the night before to perfectly meld all the flavors. You don’t want amateur coleslaw. Potato salad for the win! You can boil the potatoes and bake the beans inside while you visit with family and friends outside by the grill.

Here’s a simple and delicious recipe for baked beans that I rifted on from a Riceland recipe. It’s called Better-Than-Baked beans and I think it is better using vegetarian beans and turkey bacon. Then all your guests can eat it and no one is left out!

Better-Than-Baked beans recipe

Actually, you can make your day even easier by skipping the potato salad. This baked bean recipe is stoked full of rice and so now you have carbs handled and your meal is complete!

Yea, You!

Happy day ahead.

Eat well, my friend. Eat well.
Lyndi