Strawberry Pie

                                                

I love fresh strawberries and I had a ton I got from the farmer's market on a good deal. So I made a strawberry pie. This recipe is so easy and it was deeeeeeelish.  You make the glaze with jello! So easy peasy.  

Just the 3 oz. box boiled with sugar water makes a great Strawberry Glaze!

              

I'm gonna do another one in peach for Johnny's birthday next week. We are having everyone over for dinner. I think we'll do some ribs on the barbi. Mmmmmhmmmm. Yeah!

I like to make my crust with real butter. It just tastes better to me, like a yummy crescent cookie. So try your crust with butter. I used 1 cube butter, cut in 1 1/3 cup of flour. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and 3 Tablespoons ice water (I add ice cubes to the water before taking out the Tablespoons. 

The glaze is easy..just jello mixed with sugar water and cornstarch...

Then I like to whisk it up mold it into a ball and roll it out on a large zip lock baggie. It just makes life easier and I was out of waxed paper. :D  I rolled it out so it was about 1/2 inch bigger all around than the pie tin layed over it.  Then I cut around it. 


I rolled it out onto the gallon size baggie...you could use waxed paper too.



cuttin' around the upside down tin...1/2 inch bigger for the cute edging...

It's so easy to flip the pie crust into the pan and peel off the baggie...then toss it!

Making the beautiful edging is my fav part. Just pinch between your left thumb and your right thumb and forefinger to make the pointy peaks around your pie crust edge.  Or opposite if you are a lefty.

Don't forget to poke forkholes in the pie crust...then bake at 475 for 8-10 minutes.

While the crust was baking I did the glaze and cut off the tops of the strawberries and washed and dried them. The glaze is super easy. Mix 3/4 cup sugar with 1 cup of water and 2 tablespoons cornstarch and put it on the stove till it is smooth and boiling for about 2 minutes. 

Boil the syrup for about 2 minutes....It's a little bit thick....

Take it off the stove and toss in the small box of jello....

Then take it off the heat and add 1 small 3 oz. strawberry jello into the thickening syrup. Whisk it for a minute till it is dissolved and then put it in the fridge for 15 minutes to cool. 

Here's my glaze before I refrigerated it for 15 minutes....

Then arrange the yummy strawberries with the pointy side up in the cooled pie shell. By the time I had the green tops cut off and them washed and dried, the glaze was cool!  Pour the glaze over the top,  coating each of the top strawberries. Then pop it into the fridge for a 1/2 hour until set.

 It was delicious because the top of the crust was still crunchy cookie tasting. I hate pie crust that is all soggy Ug! So we ate that baby up so fast!!!  It was gone by morning. Yum is all I can say.  But I wish I had made 2 of em.  

Who says you can't have a fruit pie for breakfast...NOT ME! 

I'll be dreaming of this pie for awhile......mmmmm good!

Delicioso Chip and Dip recipes!

I love, love, love chips and dips of all kinds.  I have my favorites too. I love a real easy dip made from 2 ingredients; cream cheese and chili microwaved. It is sooooo good warm and with those "Scoops" Fritos.
I made this one for the family party on 4th of July. It was gone in about 20 minutes.

Chili cream cheese dip

Another one that is wonderful is Plain white Greek Yogurt mixed with dill weed and tiny bits of diced cucumber. It's great with a tray of beautiful summer veggies and very healthy and low-cal. You can buy it made up or just buy the greek yogurt and make up your own.  It's so easy. Just shake in dill weed to taste and a little salt and pepper.

greek yogurt dip

A fancier one that I just recently heard about and tried was a block of cream cheese on a pretty plate, then pour Raspberry Chipotle sauce from Costco over the top. It was kind of expensive but it is a good chicken marinade too. And this dip is sooooooo Good with crackers, baguettes OR  Tostitos.

raspberry chipotle dip

   
Have fun dipping and chipping!

Bedroom Remodeling (mountain theme)

After Devin got married to Caitlin last August, they moved into a condo down at Brigham Young University while Devin finishes up his masters in Information Systems. So we decided his room needed a remodel. I like the western/mountain theme so I found a few items to use as inspiration.

The first was this cute brown and red corduroy material quilt from one of my fav stores Target (tarjay). I loved the red little camping lamp (to the left of the bed) that was sold with it so I bought the 2 pieces to start the room.



Loved this little mirror on the bookcase embossed with fir tree leaves....my
granddaughters love all the Teddy Bears around the room....



Target had a brown dust ruffle but I got a red one instead
I love the color red for accessories...it's my favorite color!

 Then we decided to repaint with a two tone light brown and tan. Both were Glidden colors from Home Depot. I really liked the tan/yellowish "wheat" color on top of the chair rail, and decided to also paint my family room/den with the same color.


I made a little plant with an old red glass jug...don't you love the old milk bottles?
 I'm trying to think of a saying to putunderneath this oak shelf in vinyl...Real cowboys..da da dee da....


 I had a little left over so I primed my front door to see what it would look like in one of the tan shades. I think I'll do a deeper brown color to the door...but maybe a dark red?



I don't love the door. I think maybe a  red/rust color instead....

Yeah!   MUCH better!  (another sidetracked project......sheesh!)



Here's the red "camp lantern" lamp I got from Target....I loved the western "saddle" picture frame and
iron and wood table I found on clearance at Hobby Lobby. 

Here's the finished paint job and new wood flooring....we got wooden mini blinds on the window too.  My husband put in oak laminate snap in flooring  from Costco. It was  easy and we saved $8.00 per box! 

Then I went over all the mouldings in the room and repainted them white, including the closet and doors. That is THE MOST BORING JOB ON THE PLANET!!! Luckily I had some good tunes on the boom box CD to get me through. Have you heard of the Band Perry? I love those guys. They do country and crossover. Check them out.



We got this "moose" lamp on clearance at Lowes...best place for lighting IN MY OPINION! I think it was $15 bucks...
I'm waiting for the companion wall lamp that has "moose" with rusty metal to go on sale....it's still $70 bucks!




And finally these tan and brown curtains added a nice look to the window....I got them at T.J. Max

 This room used to have off white carpet and so we redid the floors in a medium oak wood and I got a cute rug in red and brown colors to match the tones of the room.




I got the set of 3 colored baskets at Joannes. I love that place!



I found a cool set of 3 nesting baskets that were line with fabric. I thought that they would be great for my accent colors.  They look great on the old wooden armoire. I filled it up with old sweaters and blankets.


I just LOVE all the dust on this rocking chair  circa 1980s... I remember rocking all my kids in it!
I filled an old basket with red and white silk geraniums... I kill regular plants really quickly!

 I like how the room turned out.  It was fun to do a "mountain man" room. And my granddaughters LOVE to sleep in there when they come to visit. There is a collection of teddy bears all around the room to go with the "bear" quilt. We also keep a "porta crib" in there for overnighters.

Headboard idea....should I do wood doors....or should I do fabric headboard?  

The last thing I need to do in here is make a headboard.  I'm waffling between 2 ideas; a brown or red painted headboard made out of these 4 old doors I have sitting in the garage. I would sand and glaze them to make them look aged a bit.... OR...
                             

The other option is a red or brown corduroy fabric headboard with nail head tacks pounded all over the edging. I'm leaning toward the fabric headboard. I bought the dark brown metal pounded tacks already.  Which do you think would look better?

4th of July Decorating

But THIS is THE BEST idea!. My grandkiddos would LOVE this red and blue ring pop for a 4th of July party favor.  I've gotta do this! The idea was originally from THIS WEBSITE HERE.

I always have fun decorating my house for 4th of July.  I didn't go overboard this time either! I've only got 1 box full of decorations and I hope to keep it that way. (gotta stay out of Hobby Lobby this month!) (OOPS, too late!).



I have 2 sets of patriotic placemats. I like these the best...they go cute with the table runner....

I bought this patriotic quilt and pillow at Kohls one year on clearance...check out my favorite store!

                                    
 Isn't this the cutest Ice Cream Sandwich treat  you've ever seen? And how EASY! Check out Spoonful.com. 


Here were my 4th of July cupcakes....the frosting was 1 c.marshmallow creme, 1 c. cool whip, 1 small brick cream cheese....yummy!

My doggie keeps trying to bite the leg off my Uncle Sam...naughty Brucifer!

This looks EASY but CUTE! I'm going to try it! This one is HERE at Cooking with Sugar. It would look cute with some little flags or cupcake pics of some sort coming out of the top wouldn't it? I have some small red star candles that would be cute! Maybe a sparkler? 

I got these off pinterest. They look really easy if you have a cricut machine for the lettering!

We got the Statue of Liberty in N.Y.C. when our family took a D.C. trip to the East Coast trip one year.....It was fun to
see the war reenactments in Philadelphia, and we saw the liberty bell there.
DON"T go there in August....it was so hot! Yuck!



My front entry table....I need a hat for my little Lady Liberty....This pic is of my nephew Garrett in the U.S. Army...
I used to babysit that guy when he was just a newborn baby! 

These looked really easy so I thought I'd try them too! They are from LOTS of cute ideas at All You.
I love putting candy in seasonal colors around my house....only problem is my 2 1/2 year old granddaugter eats it all in one gobble!



Patriotic Decor

Front Yard has to look all American too! My uncle Sam windsock is out there somewhere....OH and I painted my door RED! It looks a lot better now.

Here is an American Eagle we did one year in my classroom as a Patriotic Craft. That would be fun to do with the grandkids on the 4th of July. ALL kids LOVE glitter and paint.


Here's a close up of the front door wreath I cut out and painted the little flag holding Patriotic BEAR like 20 years ago! Yeah, I'm pretty PATRIOTIC! 

Johnny and me went up to Bear Lake and rode our quads over the 3 day weekend!

The aqua blue water is really amazing...and the view!



It's beautiful on the trails on top of the hills...you can see the whole world...and that BLUE WATER!!!




We saw a giant moose coming up our trail so we turned around and went the other way! Shoo Moose!  



Gotta stop and get a raspberry shake of course!  Hey, I am in red, white and blue! Didn't even PLAN that!

If ya can't decorate....at least sprinkle some flags somewhere around your house!  I'm proud to be American.  Happy 4th!