Tailgating: What to Bring

Your friends want to tailgate before a rock concert at DTE this weekend. You want to eat healthy.

Unless you bring your own healthy food, you're at the mercy of whoever's cooking. Need some ideas? Here are a few suggestions:

• Make your own shrimp cocktail with thawed, large peeled and deveined shrimp. Use a small relish and dip dish that will fit in your cooler so you can keep it on ice. Use bottled cocktail sauce if you want to, but I prefer a mixture of organic ketchup (or at least ketchup without corn syrup in it) and horseradish sauce. (Make it to your taste. I usually start with 1 cup of ketchup and a teaspoon of horseradish and add a little more at a time if it's not hot enough. (Don't overdo the horseradish, or you will feel as though you are breathing fire out your nose.)

• Combine brown rice or whole wheat pasta, cooked, with vegetables and your choice of an oil and vinegar or oil and lime/lemon juice dressing. Light mayo, Miracle Whip Light, or soy mayo also works, but you may need to doctor the latter with seasonings and either lemon or lime juice. (Soy mayo tends to be somewhat bland.) 

• Hard boil and peel eggs; bring in plastic wrap or plastic bags on ice as well as salt and pepper.

• If there's a barbecue available, you can barbecue shrimp, chicken and/or veggies your favorite way. See Food Network's Top 10 Better-for-You Grilled Foods for more ideas.