Red, White and Blue Muffins

Since my birthday is July the third, I am quite familiar with having a red, white and blue "theme" each year!  A favorite is making a cake with blueberries as the "stars" and strawberries as the "stripes."
 

We love just about any kind of fruit in this house and since I had some extra raspberries and blueberries in the fridge, I knew I wanted to make a muffin using those two fruits.
 

I have scoured through piles of cookbooks the past week, looking for a good recipe and finally decided to invent my own. The "white" in these red, white and blue muffins is sour cream. When I asked the hubby to "rate" these, he gave them a 10!  Good answer, honey!

Ingredients

2 cups white flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup blueberries
1/2 cup raspberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Put paper liners into a 12-cup muffin tin and set aside. In small bowl, put the blueberries and raspberries.  Rinse, then pat dry and set aside. In large bowl, put the flour, sugar, butter, eggs, milk, sour cream, baking powder, salt and vanilla. Mix until just blended with a large spoon.  Gently "fold" in the blueberries and raspberries. Distribute the batter into the muffin tin and sprinkle one teaspoon of white sugar (if desired) evenly on the tops of the 12 muffins. Bake for 25 minutes or until the muffins are starting to turn light brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle of one of the muffins comes out clean. Makes one dozen muffins.

Double Lemon No-Bake Pie

The hot and humid weather we have had the past few days here in the Midwest has definitely reminded me of the summers I grew up with in Maryland.  The hubby and I have very differing views of when to turn on the air conditioning in our house.  A few mornings ago, the hubby told me, "I think we need to turn on the air conditioning!" I told him, "let me write this down (since he doesn't like it on), you actually want it on?!?!?" When it's this warm, even with the "air" on, I don't like to turn on the oven to make a dessert, I would rather let my freezer do all the work! Making a no-bake pie is easy, especially if you use a prepared crust. I love the local Dollar Tree where I live. That is where I found my graham cracker crust and my lemon juice! 

Ingredients

9-inch ready-to-eat graham cracker crust
1/2 cup cold water
3 tablespoons powdered pink lemonade
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 1/2 cups vanilla ice cream, softened
2 cups whipped topping, thawed

In large bowl, put the cold water, powdered lemonade and lemon juice.  Stir with a large spoon until dissolved. Add the ice cream and beat with a mixer or large spoon until smooth.  Fold in the whipped topping and mix well. Pour into the graham cracker crust. Cover and put in the freezer for a minimum of four hours. Remove about five minutes before serving. Garnish with blueberries and strawberries if desired.

No-Bake Marshmallow and Pretzel Bars

I have been trying really hard lately to limit my chocolate "intake," but yesterday, I had a taste for something with chocolate, but didn't want cake, brownies or cookies.  I also didn't want to turn on the oven, because our house was already warm enough.  That means only one thing, right?  Time to whip up a no-bake "treat!" These bars were so incredibly easy to make and were ready for me to take a "sample" in less than 45 minutes.  Around lunchtime today, I asked the hubby if he wanted to try a bar and give them a "rating" of between 1-10.  He told me they were a "9."  I asked him why they weren't a "10."  His response back, "not everything you make can be a 10!" Really?!?!?! I think it is!


Ingredients:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 cups mini marshmallows
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups pretzels, broken into small pieces

Line a 8-inch square pan with aluminum foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside. In large saucepan or small stockpot, melt the butter slowly and then add the mini marshmallows. Stir with a large spoon on low heat until the marshmallows are completely melted. Remove from heat and add the chocolate chips. Stir until smooth and then add the pretzels.  Press the mixture evenly into the pan with the spoon and allow the bars to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes.  Cut into 12 squares.  Store covered at room temperature.

Frozen Fruit Smoothie Circles

Even though I found the smallest watermelon I could for Memorial Day weekend, we still had a lot left over. I was trying to figure out a way to use it all up and I wasn't coming up with any good ideas. Since I had just a handful of blueberries and raspberries also kicking around in the fridge, I thought, why not just throw all the fruit into a blender and make a smoothie? I wanted to take it a step further and freeze it, which was an awesome idea, but I couldn't locate my ice pop molds!!!! I was just about to give up, when I thought, how about using a 12-cup muffin tin for the "molds"? Lo and behold, it worked out great! Since Lauren is my smoothie "girl," she loved this recipe!  The hubby had a few of these "circles" after a long bike ride this afternoon and said, "I think you might be on to something!" If he only knew how easy this recipe was :)

2 cups chopped watermelon
1 cup blueberries, rinsed
1 cup raspberries, rinsed

Put all the fruit into a blender and blend until smooth. Distribute the mixture evenly between the 12 cups of the muffin tin. Cover with a piece of plastic wrap and put into the freezer for a minimum of four hours. When ready to eat, lightly loosen each "circle" with a dinner knife and remove.  Eat immediately!!