A Casual Red Beans & Rice Valentine’s Day Soiree!

Every week, I’m going to try to share a story of hospitality, a fun party that I’ve hosted or attended, or just wisdom from other folks about what it means to provide a warm welcome.

This year we’d tried to have a fun winter bonfire out on our farm back in late December, (I was hoping for an Appalachian “Breakin’ up of Christmas” theme, but the weather DID. NOT. COOPERATE.

I mean, who wants to have a bonfire, eat red beans and rice, and make s’mores in rainy 80 degree weather? Not me or anyone I know. But we’d already made all the red beans and rice, and they freeze pretty well, so we just rescheduled for a later date. We chose Valentine’s day since Sundays are GREAT farm party days, and since our place is named Redstone Farm after the Choctaw word for the creek that runs down the middle, we went with a RED theme on Valentine’s Day.

I know… everyone has mixed feelings (or super negative or CRAZY positive feelings) about this greeting card holiday, but who has mixed feelings about hot cocoa, friendship, and the great outdoors? Better not say that you’re that person… fun sponge. 😉

I know it’s a little out of season, BUT I wanted to share these photos that my wonderful and super talented friends from Studio 5Fifty and Scruggs Photography in Laurel took for me and tell you a little bit about the party. Read on for a menu, some decorating ideas, and a list of things to do, so next winter or valentine’s day, you can be ready for your own easy, fun, bonfire party! Also,I guess if it’s still chilly where you are this would totally work as an early spring-time fete, too. We wanted an easy, family feel to the whole thing, so everything was disposable. With so many kids, and so much space to roam and explore, it was just easier this way. We fed probably 26 adults and 30 or so kids, and planned for more than that just in case, and still did it all for under $200. Split between my folks and us, this was a pretty manageable cost for such a fun party.

The Menu

Lots of Red Beans & Rice. Lots. See my version of my family’s recipe here if you’re not sure where to start with this Lousiana Classic.

A large Green Salad

French Bread

A variety of Hot Sauce (we’re all pretty picky down here about which ones we want to use, so it’s best to have more than one choice)

S’mores fixings (Graham crackers, marshmallows, hershey’s chocolate bars, peanut butter cups, thin mints)

The Drinks
Lots of cold beer, plus any adult add-ins you want for the cocoa (we had a couple of liqours to choose from.)

Hot Cocoa Mix, Juice squeeze pouches, cokes (or pepsi..whatevs. you know down here “coke” IS the generic term),  bottled water,

For Serving:

Crockpots  paper plates, paper cups, paper straws, a large salad bowl, plastic knives, spoons, forks, paper napkins

Unbent coathangers or actual roasting forks for the S’mores

A bunch of ice coolers or some other ways to ice down the drinks. Wagner got this wagon for his first birthday last year, but I’ve been using it as a rad beer transport system. Was I embarrassed when he told our minister-friend “That’s a wagon full of beer!” nah. Ok, maybe a little.

The Decor

It was a REDbeans and rice party at REDstone farm, so, um… we went with a casual red theme. Lots of burlap, a couple of hearts, and lots of red cups,forks, etc.What I love about Red is that it works around Christmas, Valentine’s day AND the Fourth of July, so if you buy too many of something, you can just reuse them. 😉

I also spread red and white blankets around (I had these already from an earlier bedroom iteration, so this was no big deal…but I do think having the blankets was a nice touch because it encouraged people to snuggle or lay and around on them eating (see below).

We also strung some large Christmas lights around for good measure, which framed the food table pretty well AND offered extra light once the sun went down.

The Fun

So our bonfire party kinds had to turn into more of a farm party when the wind picked up and started howling. See this pile of wood behind Wagner? Can you imagine if a bonfire that big got out of hand?

The good news is that we’d planned for lots of kid-friendly things to do so not having the planned-for bonfire wasn’t the end of the world.

1. My mama found these fun animal-heart masks for a song and picked up a sackful. You see here how even the older kids thought they were fun (this is one of the reasons I think the Scruggs are such great photographers… this shot. They’re really just amazing with kids and can make anyone feel comfortable,so they just catch really beautiful and fun moments. Need a photographer? They travel.

2. The blankets turned out to be a pretty nice hangout spot.

3.We took all of our outdoor toys and let the littlest kids go to town, while the older kids roamed around the pond and down in the woods looking for turtles and deer tracks.

4. Someone had to tend the small fire we DID have… and help kids with s’mores. My dad and his best bud mostly took on that challenge. Ending a night with S’mores is always so fun for kids (if not a little nerve wracking for mamas and daddies… what with kids so close to fire and all…) We started with a little fire safety lesson and then had the older kids help the younger ones.

5. And then we ended the night with a sing-long and hot chocolate. The mama of the sweet little boy in the middle said that when they went home he thanked God for “little marshmallows and guitars.” if I had the heart-eye emojji on my computer I’d put it here.