Our church is having a potluck on Sunday, so my mom and I are bringing a strawberry jello pretzel salad (honestly, I don't know why they even called it a salad. Think of it as more like a cheesecake with crushed pretzels as the crust).

Strawberry Jello Pretzel Salad

6 oz strawberry Jell-O

2 cups boiling water

2 1/2 cups salted pretzels, (measured before crushing)

1/4 cup granulated sugar

8 Tbsp unsalted butter

8 oz package cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

8 oz cool whip, thawed in the fridge

1 lb fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced

For summer solstice (June 21st), I made a rhubarb mulberry cake. I used rhubarb and mulberries because I didn't have enough of either to make the recipe without combining them. It was pretty good, I used a healthy sweet mix instead of sugar, and those were the only alterations I made to the recipe. It did have an egg and it was nice to be able to make a recipe with eggs and not have to find a substitute.  

Need to pick a dessert for the 4th of July since it's just over a week from now, I would like to make ice cream if we have all the ingredients and can get ice. It's been a while since we made real ice cream. 

SnowAngel

I've tried some sunbutter a couple a years ago. It's like peanut butter made with sunflower seeds.

I've just tried Kombucha for the first time. It's fermented tea, and it's similar to soda. It's good for your gut health, and it makes a great alternative if you're trying to cut back on soda.

Posted by: @jasmine_tarkheena

I've just tried Kombucha for the first time. It's fermented tea, and it's similar to soda. It's good for your gut health, and it makes a great alternative if you're trying to cut back on soda.

I love kombucha! My older sister makes it, it's so delicious. Sometimes we make fruit salad with kombucha and chia seeds that is amazing.  

I made vanilla ice cream yesterday for Independence Day, it was so good. Served it with cookie dough chunks and fudge sauce.  

Today I am baking bread and making zucchini casserole in the crockpot. I love the way the house smells when bread is baking.  

SnowAngel

Posted by: @snowangel

 

I love kombucha! My older sister makes it, it's so delicious. Sometimes we make fruit salad with kombucha and chia seeds that is amazing.

Yeah. I've also seen where you can make a kombucha float, like a root beer float.

Posted by: @snowangel

I made vanilla ice cream yesterday for Independence Day, it was so good. Served it with cookie dough chunks and fudge sauce.

You must be referring to Jefferson's recipe for Vanilla Ice Cream. It's crazy to think how Ice cream would've been made during that time period.

This morning I took my kids blackberry picking! We went early, early in the morning, so even though it was hot, it certainly wasn't unbearable. And then we turned around, came home, and made blackberry crisp. Summer has my favorite foods, hands down. (Though I do like soups and stews in the winter too )

@fantasia Sounds yum! I picked and ate two or three blackberries as I was out walking yesterday — the first of the season and only JUST ripe. Most of them around here are still green, not even red yet! But they'll come along in August, no doubt. (It did take me a while to get used to blackberry season being August rather than February. But then, there was also the time in London when I did a double take on seeing a Cootamundra wattle — a beautiful winter flowering tree from Australia — in full flower in February rather than August... )

For each year during the holidays, my mom has been making homemade caramels. She got the recipe from a friend from our church.

Caramel:

2 cup sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup heavy cream

Add a cup of cream in a medium sauce pan. Stir and turn on heat; boil to soft ball stage. Add another cup of cream; cook to soft ball stage. Remove from stove when ready; add vanilla. Pour into greased 7x pan after vanilla has been stirred in well. Let cool completely before cutting in 5 squares. Wrap in wax paper.

Posted by: @jasmine_tarkheena

Posted by: @snowangel

I made vanilla ice cream yesterday for Independence Day, it was so good. Served it with cookie dough chunks and fudge sauce.

You must be referring to Jefferson's recipe for Vanilla Ice Cream. It's crazy to think how Ice cream would've been made during that time period. 

I didn't know that Thomas Jefferson had an ice cream recipe. We just had ice cream because we hadn't made it for a while and it sounded good. Last week we had coffee ice cream that a sibling made and it was amazing!  

Tuesday I made a sort of Shepherd's Pie with various leftovers that my sister then dub Garden Pie because it had veggies from our garden and the farmers market. I had to hand mash leftover boiled potatoes with pumpkin and butter for the topping, a lot of work mashing cold potatoes, but it was worth it. It was tasty meal.  

SnowAngel

We got to pick apples earlier this week and yesterday we made applesauce for the freezer, a batch of dehydrated apples, 3 quarts of apple cider to enjoy this weekend, a batch of apple jelly, and apple oat scones. I forgot how long it can take to mash the cooked apples through the colander, but it's so worth it. Oh, we also had apple crisp on Wednesday, and it was pretty good if I do say so myself as the baker of the aforementioned dessert.   That accounts for almost 60 pounds of apples.

I'm hoping to make pumpkin pie today for the first day of fall. However first my sister has to finish baking bread and granola. I need to bake a pie crust, so I can then make my favorite chilled pumpkin filling. I should have baked the pie crust yesterday, but the kitchen was so crazy busy with all the apple cooking and mess. It's amazing how small the kitchen gets when you have a project like applesauce going on in it.

SnowAngel

I did make pumpkin pie for the first day of fall. It was pretty good. We have been making some changes to our regular pie crust recipe and this time we tried it with coconut oil. The crust is very solid after refrigerating, so I think I like it best just cooled. 

We got a bunch more apples a couple weeks ago, we made a lot of applesauce and cider for the freezer and some more dehydrated apples for trail mix and oatmeal this winter. We also made a couple of really good apple pies that didn't go in the freezer.   We got three varieties of apples this year: Jonathan, Golden Delicious, and Gala. The Jonathan apples are the best, they make amazing applesauce. I personally like the pinky color the applesauce has from the Jonathan apples.  

SnowAngel

Sunday we were given a few pumpkins which needed to be preserved or used immediately. So Sunday afternoon I spent baking pumpkins, pureeing them, and bagging the puree to freeze. It was late enough in the evening when I finished pureeing the last pumpkin that I just dumped the pumpkin in a bowl and put it in the fridge overnight. Monday I had to bake a dessert with that fresh pumpkin, enter my favorite pumpkin dessert. It's a pumpkin, eggs, and milk layer topped with a cake mix, butter, and pecans. So good. Naturally I made the cake mix and this time I added vanilla powder to it and, WOW, definitely going to be adding that to the recipe! It was even a hit with our guests who aren't really into healthy food.

And a few weeks ago we got pears too. So, we have pear sauce and pear cider in the freezer now as well. The pear sauce is good, but I definitely prefer applesauce. I do not like the grit texture in the pears.

SnowAngel

I'm going to be vacationing with an out of town sibling who's mostly eating vegan in March, so I have been brainstorming ideas for foods we can both enjoy while I'm there. He normally has an extremely limited diet but is ok with variety, just doesn't bother with it much. I on the other hand *crave* variety and find half the fun of food is getting to experiment a little!

What's your go-to comfort food when you don't have energy to do something fancy but you want something satisfying? Mine tends to be Starch With Butter And Cheese. A quick batch of noodles, or leftover rice, or sometimes grilled cheese sammich. Normally the Cheese element is shred cheddar but it can vary. Oddly, I don't really turn to potato much in those situations, even if we have leftover potato in the fridge, though?