Summer Fresh Fruit Salad

Salads are always good for a meal for me.  They are easy to make for one person – except potato salad, pasta salad or fruit salad.  Have you ever noticed how those grow from a medium to a large bowl?  At least mine do.

I am accused of messing up too many dishes when I cook.  This is due in part to my inability to judge the correct size bowl, pan or baking dish my meal requires.  When I had children at home a pasta salad might take 3 bowls to get it right.  The first one was way too small, the second was just right, but I had to room to give it all a good toss.  Thus a third and much larger bowl was required.  When it came time to store it in the refrigerator to chill, I might have been able to go back to the original (second) bowl which by then may have had something else put in it.  At that point I would look for another medium size bowl to store the salad in the refrigerator.  When it was time to toss it again, I usually had to retrieve that larger bowl.  I did try to reuse the bowl which was just the right size for the refrigerator upon completion of the essential toss and taste portion of the recipe.  Now, of course, there is a dish I will choose to stage for a photo for this blog. This is an entirely new dimension to the cleaning routine.

The same is true for vegetable soup.  I try to make a portion for just a few meals, but I always end up with the largest soup pan.  I have even been known to overflow the pressure cooker if I get carried away with chopping veggies before I add the stock.

This makes perfectly good sense to me.  Dirty dishes in the sink are the sign of a good day.  Happy, happy!  Since I am the one cleaning up, who cares?

The same was true for this little Watermelon Salad.  This was the best seedless watermelon I have ever had.  I hope I get some more during the summer.  My luck isn’t too good in picking perfect ones.   I made this for Saturday dishes which starts bright and early tomorrow. Make sure to come and share your salad recipes!

Fruit Salad

Fresh Fruit Salad

Serve with a strawberry yogurt as a dressing, if desired. (I like mine plain.)

What You Need:

  • 1 small seedless watermelon, cubed
  • 2 cups blueberries
  • 2 mangos, peeled and cubed
  • 3 kiwi fruit, peeled and sliced

What You Do:

  1. Rinse and cube the fruit. (Except the blueberries)
  2. Toss this in any size bowl you want (if it fits in the refrigerator).
  3. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
http://www.tumbleweedcontessa.com/blog/summer-fresh-fruit-salad/

Fresh Strawberry Muffins

I love the sights, sounds, smells and feel of spring.  Everything is fresh and new again.  My old fashioned rose is excited too.  It is blooming more and more every day.  Memorial Day is this weekend, and just like that the heat is on. Here comes summer!

Roses

We are finally getting some good strawberries here in the stores.  So I proceeded to use some of those in some muffins for Sunday morning breakfast.  These little muffins are not real sweet to taste but they are sweet to see.

Strawberry Muffins

Fresh Strawberry Muffins

These can be served dusted with powdered sugar or served plain.

What You Need:

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 extra large egg
  • ½ cup milk
  • ¼ cup vegetable oil
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla
  • ½ teaspoon butter flavoring
  • 4-5 drops red food coloring
  • 1 cup diced strawberries + 2 tablespoons sugar

What You Do:

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°. Line a muffin tin with paper liners.
  2. In a medium bowl whisk together the dry ingredients.
  3. In a small bowl lightly beat the egg.
  4. Add the milk, flavorings, oil and food coloring to the egg and combine.
  5. Add the wet to the dry ingredients and mix just to combine.
  6. Fold in the strawberries which have been macerating in the sugar.
  7. Fill the muffins cups abut ¾ full and bake for 15 – 18 minutes.
  8. Allow the muffins to rest in the tin for 5-8 minutes and remove to a rack to cool.
http://www.tumbleweedcontessa.com/blog/fresh-strawberry-muffins/

 

Easy to Grow-My Garden View

Easy to Grow

Source: Easy To Grow, Flower Poem www.FamilyFriendPoems.com

I don’t have a lush garden. I live in very dry, West Texas. I do have spots of color and I direct my eyes to those bright spots. I celebrate anything I plant that comes back the next year and usually plant more of that. This year things are about a month behind where they were last year. I think that ground hog really messed up the weather this year..

My Old Fashioned Rose was a 50-cent find in a basket of almost dead plants about 15 years ago. It has grown, survived major freezes, dry, rainless summers and still has a rush of blooms in early May each year.

Mrs. Potter is a piece of garden art I constructed and with a little rehab she surveys her court of flowers in baskets and pots each year from a corner of my patio . This year she got new gloves and a new “flower head” to keep her as bright as the flowers surrounding her head and her feet. Once upon a time she was surrounded by the most beautiful star jasmine. Most of it died back one winter. But it is struggling valiantly to return. There are more blossoms this year. The scent is still wonderful when the breeze blows across the little white blooms.

The Knock Out roses have been prolific this year. So I planted 6 more with hope they will take to the spot I selected for them. I have a new vine with a brilliant pink bloom. A Mandeville. I hope it will cover a bare spot in a nice shady corner of the garden.

The herbs are so nice to have just outside the door. I’m trying thyme and lavender again. I think I will flag them with yellow tape so the yard man won’t pull them up again when he comes to clean.

And I have pots of purple petunias all around. They attract the butterflies and survive the heat of the day all summer. So they are my friends!

In the Garden

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