Not your everyday FRUIT Salads.

Hopefully, I'm not too late for your weekend menu planning. I want to share with you a couple quick salads that include fruit, and a few links to some salads that I've shared in the past, to help with this weekends menu.

When someone says "fruit salad" do you automatically think of that mushy stuff with maraschino cherries in it, that was served on our lunch trays? Fruit Cocktail. My grandma tried to pass it off as dessert on occasion. Us kids, we weren't buying it, Yuck! I do appreciate a nice bowl of fresh fruit, cut up and tossed together, with nothing but their natural juices. But that's not what I'm talking about either.

The blue is hiding in this picture, but this salad is perfect for Independance Day because it's Red/White and Blue! It will look perfectly patriotic on your table!

I have shared a very similar salad with you before. This time I threw in some blueberries. Apple chunks also work well in this salad. This salad is terribly easy, and is always a hit. I know some of you have a goat cheese aversion, so to you I say GET OVER IT! Goat Cheese rocks. Sorry...what I really meant to say was, you can also use Feta Cheese if you prefer. Please and thank you .

Red White and Blue Salad

printable recipe

1 large head Red Romaine

1 pint Strawberries, sliced

2 cups Blueberries

1/2 Red Onion, sliced thin

1 cup Caramelized Pecans (How to caramelize pecans can be found here.)

5 ounces Goat Cheese

1 bottle Poppy Seed Salad Dressing

Clean lettuce and tear into bite sized pieces, place in shallow salad dish. Layer sliced strawberries, blueberries, sliced onion, pecans, and crumbled goat cheese over lettuce. Serve with dressing on the side.

The colors in this next salad aren't quite as patriotic, but I promise you will be whistling Dixie after you have your first bite!

My sister served us this salad last week. It is so simple and so perfectly scrumptious! I wanted to push my burger aside and eat only it.

Clean and pit peaches. Then slice into thin wedges.

Peach Salad

printable recipe

4 Peaches, sliced thin

1/4 of a Red Onion, sliced thin

1/4 cup Basil, chopped

1 lemon, juiced

2 tablespoons Olive Oil

1 teaspoon Course Salt

fresh cracked Pepper, to taste

After slicing peaches, slice onion very thin, chop basil, toss together with juice of one lemon, olive oil, coarse salt, and cracked pepper. Voila! Easy peasy scrump-dilly-icious Peach Salad!

The following are just a few of my tried and true favorites. I have served them over and over again, and they never get old.

Mini Wedge

Heart of Palm Salad

Caprese Salad

Napa Cabbage Salad

Sheesh after all this talk about salad I'm raring to get choppin'!!! I hope you are too.

Do you have a favorite salad you bring to picnics?

I would love for you to share it. If you have a blog post on it, leave the link in the comments. You can also find some other great Red White and Blue inspirations at Add a Pinch, go check it out!

Have a great weekend!

Drive safe and don't burn your fingers with the Sparklers!

LEMONy blueBERRY muffins

I bet you didn't know that one of my best friends name is Cris....Cris Co. For real. I don't know what I would do with out her. My life would be at a stand still, I would be barely existing if not for good ol' Cris. From the time I was a very little scarffer...I have been depending on Cris. Why if not for her I would not have this fabulous donut permanently and for ever more around my middle amen! Ummm, hmmm maybe she is not such a good friend after all. But if not for her I would not be able to share my pies, fried chicken, muffins, cookies etc. with all my friends and family. Thank you Cris Co...your the BEST!

Now that I finally have given a proper THANK you shout out to my life long pal. I would love to share with you my lemony blueberry muffins.

Today is the second Monday of the month. And for me that means baking day for my friends down at the PRC. The second Tuesday morning of the month is the "Meet the PRC" meeting. Where people from the area who are interested in finding out what the pregnancy resource center does, and is about, can go in and have a tour and hear all about the facility. AND have a homemade goody from ME. So if you want to learn more about the PRC and/or have a fresh baked muffin with out making them yourself...then head on down there tomorrow morning.

Or you can make them for yourself. Here is what you will need. I was having an out of body experience when I took this picture.

Lemony Blueberry Muffins

printable recipe

2 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

3/4 cup shortening

2 eggs

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup milk

1 lemon zested

1 1/2 cup blueberries (frozen or fresh)

crumble top

1/2 stick butter

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

preheat oven 350

Cream the shortening and sugar together, add eggs, beat well, then add the vanilla. In a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients together, flour, salt, and baking powder.

Then alternate adding the 1 cup milk and the dry ingredients until incorporated in to the sugar mixture.

Now you can grab yourself a lemon, wash with water and dry. Then get your self a zester, if you don't have one, then use a serrated edged knife and scrape off the outer yellow part of the peel right on into the batter.

Oh it smells so fantastic..... Lemony fresh!

There is the poor little naked lemon, sitting on the window sill wondering what is in store for him now.

Add your blueberries, then fold the berries and the zest into the batter.

Grease your muffins tins, unless you decide to use muffin papers, then no need. Fill tins 3/4 full of batter. Go ahead lick your finger...it's OK.

Now the crumble topping needs to be made. I like to use my mini food processor. If you have one cut up your cold butter into pieces throw it in there add the flour and sugar and pulse until it looks like the below picture. Before I acquired a mini food processor I just used a good old fashioned fork and it worked just dandy. So don't feel like you need one of these gadgets. I got along for decades with out one.

What would the world be with out crumble topping? Or what would muffins be with our crumble topping. Or should I say where would crumble topping be with out muffins. Oh boy!

What are these you ask? No they are not calf nuts. They are butter balls. Literally butter balls. If you get these little guys in your food processor after you pulse the dickens out of the topping..then remove them because you don't want to plop one on top of your muffin. They will make you muffin all weird on the inside. Side note: when I turned my back these babies where gone.....some one ate them, gobbled them right up. I think it was my youngest. She is such a scrawny butt, a little sugar and butter might do her good.

Scoop muffin tins 3/4 full.

Give the top of each muffin a good coat of crumble topping. Approximately 1 tablespoon each.

Bake at 350 degrees for normal sized muffins 18-20 minutes.

Or for these monsters you will need to bake them 30 minutes or until they are a nice golden brown. Watch them closely so they don't get too brown. You don't want dry muffins. Dry muffins are a very bad thing.

Oh yeah feel free to use my new sidebar share thing-a-ma-jig! Now you can easily share me with your FB friends and twitter me and all that jazz.

It's nice to share!

LuvYA as much as Cris Co....reeally I do!

blueberry PIE me OH my!

It is blueberry season in Michigan. I did a little blueberry research. Apparently, I have been taking something for granted....and it's not Lake Michigan. It's the fact that I have lived in the midst of the nations largest blueberry crops my whole life and didn't even know it!

YES it's true...I knew that there were alot of blueberry patches around. But I did not realize that southwestern Michigan is the number one producer of the nations blueberries. The sandy soils make our area the perfect place to grow the only true blue food!

60 to 100 million pounds of blueberries come out of this region every year between mid-July and September.

Another amazing fact about the pretty lil fruit is that is has been said to reverse the aging process! The chock full of antioxidants and other things I cannot spell. Apparently some study done on furry little creatures showed this to be true. So I wonder how many blueberries I would have to eat to be 28 again. Blueberries are also high in fiber 5grams per cup...hmmm that explains......well I bet those rats where young but they probably spent most of their furry little lives on the WC! (mommy speak: WC=potty)

Sorry...I wasn't going to go there...but I did. Now I hope your appetite is not ruined, because I wanted to share my blueberry pie filling recipe with you. You can go back and check out how to make pie crust here if you want....or you can use Pillsbury I won't tell anyone if you do.

Blueberry Pie Filling

printable recipe

ingredients:

5 cups of fresh or frozen blueberries
1/2 lemon, juiced and zested
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 pie crusts
1/4 cup 2%milk
cinnamon sugar for dusting

Here are the goods you will need. The raw sugar is for the pie pockets....I use the cinnamon sugar on my pie.

Juice your little lemony-wemony! And then scrape his skin off, poor buddy gets the juice kicked out of him then you skin him. Put him out of his misery in your garbage disposal, it will make it all lemony fresh.

Then put the blueberries, sugar, cornstarch in pan, toss to coat blueberries. Then add your lemon juice and zest.

Cook over medium heat for 5-8 minutes until sugar dissolves and juice starts to thicken. Don't over cook, remember that you are going to to bake the pie still...you don't want blueberry jam pie!

So if you went and checked out my pie crust lesson you will know how to get to the below point....just roll out the dough and cut into 5 inch triangles, then put a 1/4 cup of filling on the dough....

Then you you want to fold the dough over like soooo.....

Key to saving yourself a ton of time cleaning your cookie sheets PARCHMENT PAPER, if you have some line your pan with it, if you don't have any get in your car and go buy it. Now that we have that settled let's proceed.

Then take a fork and give the edge a good press, to hold in the filling. (although no matter what you do, it's still going to ooze out a little thats ok.)

Brush the little pies with milk....

Sprinkle them with the sugar...

Voila, like so...isn't it purdy? Now bake it at 350 for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool completely before trying to pick up and eat.

OR you can just go this route and do ONE big Ol' pie. That works for me.....

Bake your pie on a cookie sheet (so if it runs over you won't have a huge mess all over the bottom of your oven) in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until golden brown like the pie you see below! Let cool for half an hour before digging in.

I always like to put my pie in just as we are sitting down for dinner. Seems like perfect timing for dessert after dinner. DO not forget to serve with vanilla bean ice cream!

There are my lil' pies on a platter waiting to be served with some muffins.

I hope you try this pie filling. You could make little tartlets too. Or if your cobbler background is of the pie crust sort, well then put your crust in a 9x13 pan pour pie filling over the top and then lay random pieces of crust over the top....cobbled crust...and bake the same as the pie.

Enjoy!