Easy Desserts

 

I had some frozen blueberries and strawberries lurking in the freezer that had gotten shoved to the back and subsequently forgotten. I found them recently when looking for frozen meatballs. There wasn’t enough of the fruit to make a cobbler, so I did something else with it.

 

I made a small cake with a yellow Jiffy Cake mix. While it was baking and then cooling, I put the fruit in a bowl to thaw a bit and added some sugar. When the cake was fully cooled I made some vanilla pudding from a box mix and added the fruit. I poured it over the cake and put it in the fridge.

 

It turned out to be pretty darn good. The next time I do this, though, I will leave the cake hot and poke holes all over it so the pudding/fruit can seep into the cake a bit. It could even be made into a kind of trifle with the cake cut up in small pieces.

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Another easy dessert to make is one I did all the time when I was still a kid at home. I’d take slightly stale cookies and crush them up. Then I’d stir them into pudding and put in little dishes. By the time we’d eat the pudding, the cookies would be nice and soft. Very yummy. Sometimes I would even take fresh cookies and do this.

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I grew up on Jello with canned fruit in it. When the kids were little, they didn’t like the pieces of fruit. They’d eat around it. I finally hit on the idea of pureeing the fruit in the blender and mixing it in the Jello when making it. Just used less water because of the fruit/juice. Everything blended well and the kids were none the wiser.

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Muffin Mix Pancakes—found this somewhere on the Internet. It calls for 1 (7oz) package of Martha White muffin mix. They come in all flavors. Mix with 2/3 c. milk, 1 egg, 1 TBS oil. It makes 7-8 pancakes. The first flavor I tried was the chocolate chip. It was good BUT very sweet. You don’t need much syrup at all with them. They would taste great with just some butter on them, as you would with a muffin.

 

Compost Mentis

 

Yes, I spelled that correctly. Most people know that compost is made up of detritus from yardwork, food scraps, just about any kind of organic stuff that will decompose under the right conditions. And while this kind of compost is very good for growing vegetables, mental compost is not very helpful.

 

Mental compost can be made up of anything swirling around in your head. Negative thoughts, negative input from the media, every little thing from Junior High…

There’s a saying “You are what you eat.” The same goes for your mind, “Garbage in, garbage out.”

 

In Philippians 4:8, the apostle Paul says, “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”

 

In other word, put GOOD stuff in your mind! And it’s so easy to say, but so hard to do sometimes. There’s not a lot of virtuous or praiseworthy stuff going on in the world right now. It seems we’re all at each other’s throats. The knives are ready to plunge into backs. Whatever is negative is what is broadcast in the media.

 

So watch your mental compost pile. Sift through it often. Turn it over. Take out the bad stuff and leave the good. Keep putting more good stuff in. Try to use your good compost to feed the fruits of the spirit.

 

Mind Musings

I don’t remember if I blogged about this before, so bear with me. One time that I went to Chico and ended up at Barnes & Noble, I did my traditional stop at the Starbucks inside. I had a coupon for a dessert and I chose the Rainbow Cake because it was so pretty. I took it home and split it with Marv. I wasn’t surprised that the cake layers didn’t have different flavors for each color, but that was OK. It was still awesome.

 

Nake Grape vs Barefoot

Both make a very good Moscato, which is my favorite. I don’t remember which one I had first. The first time I visited the kids when they rented a house, the landlords left a bottle of Moscato in the fridge. Neither like it, so they gave it to me. Whatever brand it was, it was the second one I had tried. So I have both brands to chose from when I shop for this wine.

 

Things I’ve Never Eaten:

Poutine – This seems to be something ALL Canadians love, and I wouldn’t mind trying this. I love French fries and I love gravy. I could probably make this myself, but I’d be the only one who would eat it. Sometimes when I have a French dip sandwich in a restaurant and have some of the jus left over, I will mash my French fries in it.

Spotted Dick with Custard – Not only is this a fun dessert to say, it sounds yummy! The “spots” are raisins, BTW. Where the name came from, I don’t know. It’s still funny. It’s a steamed pudding with custard hard sauce. The closest I’ve ever come is bread pudding with hard sauce.

Haggis – This is a hard NOPE! Don’t want to, never gonna. Liver, heart and lungs of a sheep. Mix with suet, oatmeal and seasoning. Pack it back into the stomach of the sheep and boil it.

Escargot – More like escarNOPE…

Fugu – First of all, I don’t care much for fish, especially the kind that will kill me. So I’ll pass on this one as well.