Summer Breezes

Seals and Crofts just roamed through my head. How about you? I loved that song. Brings back some good memories.

I have some interesting things to share this month. Hopefully, you will think so too. I have been busy! So here we go……………………

Recipes

I recently made a banana poke cake with a pudding and Cool Whip frosting. It turned out really nice and the birthday girl liked it. First I made a banana cake with a Duncan Hines mix. I used a wooden spoon handle to poke holes in the cake and poured vanilla pudding made with only half the milk into the holes and ontop of the cake. I used the following frosting to top it off.

Pudding and Cool Whip Frosting

It is so simple that it is ridiculous! You use a 6 serving box of your favorite pudding (I used vanilla) and prepare it using half the milk. Then you fold in a whole 16 ounce container of Cool Whip! Viola!

Dill Pickle Macaroni Salad (togetherasafamily.com)

• 1 box (16 oz) rotini pasta
• ⅓ cup dill pickle juice from the pickle jar
• 2 cups chopped baby dill pickles
• 1 block (8 oz) Colby Jack cheese cubed small
• 1 small white onion finely chopped

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• ½ cup sour cream
• ⅓ cup dill pickle juice from the pickle jar
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill (or 1 tablespoon dried dill)
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon pepper

• Cook pasta according to package directions.Don’t forget to add some salt to the boiling water before adding the pasta. I add about 1 teaspoon.
• When pasta is done cooking drain pasta and rinse with cold water.Move rinsed cooked pasta to a mixing bowl and pour ⅓ cup of pickle juice over it. Stir to combine. Let it sit while you prepare the rest.
• Chop the dill pickles and cheese into small cubes. Finely chop the white onion.
• Drain the pasta again that was sitting in the pickle juice. Add it back to the mixing bowl. Add in the pickles, cheese, and white onion. Stir to combine.
• In a small bowl combine all the dressing ingredients and pour over the pasta salad. Stir everything together to combine well.Salad can be eaten right away but I prefer it cold, and if you do too, then cover it and refrigerate it for 1-2 hours.
• * I would recommend not making this too far ahead of time. For best results serve this salad within a few hours of making it. Either right away or after the refrigeration time. Leftovers do keep well in the fridge but the dressing thickens up and it’s not as creamy as when you first make it.

*It was delicious! I am sure you could do the same thing but with sweet pickles depending on your preference. I didn’t know if my company would like the raw onions in the salad so I used onion powder as a substitute.

Hacks

*I have shared in the past that you can add some milk to the water you boil corn on the cob in to make it extra juicy. I have now found out that you can add powdered milk to the water and it has the same effect.

*If you have a dishwasher you can save time on the finished end when you presort silverware into separate compartments when you load the dishwasher. Then when it is time to unload you simply grab a handful of spoons, or forks or knives and put them away.

*You can move heavy furniture easily if you put old socks on each leg. You don’t have to buy those special discs for furniture moving. The effect with socks is the same. Slip, slidin’ away!

*Summer is the time for grilling and dining “al fresco”. There is sometimes a concern for keeping salads like macaroni salad cold during the meal. It can be solved easily by buying some of those disposable foil pans. You put about and inch or two of water in the larger pan and freeze it. A couple of smaller pans holding your perishables will fit right in the pan and stay cold due to the ice frozen in the bottom.

*My friend, Sue, shared an app with me called, Merlin. It is awesome. I downloaded it from the Play Store right away and have been using it. You just open it, click to record the sound of the birds you hear and it identifies them for you as well as, giving you information on them. Try it!!

Crafty-business

First of all, I want to update you on the vintage radio I shared last time. At that point I had taken out the guts and given the cabinet one coat of taupe chalk paint. i have since given it a second coat and once that dried, I used antique wax to give it an aged effect. Next I glued the knobs back on using E6000 and a little bit of hot glue to hold them in place until the E6000 cured. I had removed the cloth that covered the speaker because it was rotten. In place of that I put screen inside of the cabinet. I bought color changing LED lights to stick inside so I wanted them to glow through the screen and around the radio dial. To get that effect with the dial I used sponge spacers to hold the dial out just a bit from the case and secured it using the same glue method as with the knobs. The end result is that it looks like the radio is on. After placing the lights I used cardboard staple to the back so that the lights didn’t glow on the wall. Let me know what you think. I am in love with the result!

Quick and Easy Summer Tablecloth

This tablecloth is made entirely from bandanas that I bought for $1 a piece at Walmart. I sewed them together, just overlapping a little bit and there you go, great look! I made this for only $9!

Summer Wall Hanging!

I bought 3 pair of flip flops at Dollar Tree and glued them to a wooden dowel in a pleasing pattern with hot glue and E6000. Using my Cricut I cut out of vinyl letters to spell Summer. The letters were attached to the flip flops. It hangs by a loop of jute which I secured to the flip flops.

This next project I completed (kind of) this morning. I formed the “window” using paint stirrers that I purchased at Home Depot and painted them with off white chalk paint. I used screen I already had to make the screened in window effect. The flower boxes are 2 wooden boxes I purchased at Dollar Tree and painted using the same chalk paint. I glued the boxes to the bottom of the window frame, added floral foam and flowers. The reason I stated that it is kind of done is that I still want some sort of scene in the window. Right now I am pondering how to do that.

Here’s hoping this post hit some good notes with you and see you next month!!