Waste Not

In an attempt to make encourage my kids to eat the 4 containers of vanilla yogurt that they deemed too sour, I decided to make yogurt pops!

I dumped the yogurt into my food processor,

added some homemade strawberry jam,

and some frozen blueberries.

After it was all mixed up, I put the mixture into paper cups with popsicle sticks inserted.

I also made some chocolate banana ones. These have mashed bananas and chocolate syrup added instead.

As soon as they were frozen,

they started disappearing!

Quickly!!

Problem solved!

What The Macks Had For Dessert

After seeing a recipe for blueberry cheesecake bars, I really wanted to try them! But I didn't have all the ingredients for the recipe I found, so I made up my own! Mmmmm, and they turned out so good!

Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

Start with a shortbread crust:

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter, cut into 1/2 in. pieces

2 cups flour

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350. In a food processor, process all ingredients until small lumps are formed. Sprinkle mixture into a 13 X 9 inch pan and press evenly into the bottom. Bake 15 minutes.

While the crust is baking, prepare the topping:

2 packages (16 ounces total) cream cheese, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

6 Tablespoons lemon juice

2 cups blueberries

3 Tablespoons flour

6 Tablespoons packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

3 Tablespoons butter

Combine cream cheese and sugar and beat until smooth. Add eggs and lemon juice. Beat well and spread over cooked shortbread crust. Sprinkle with blueberries. In a small bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle streusel topping over blueberries. Return to oven. Bake at 350 for 50-55 minutes or until filling is set.

So how was it received?

Molly- "Mmmmmm...."

Abby- "Yummy!!!!"

Leah- "Take my picture too!" (But I'm not going to smile!)

It was a big hit, really! :)

A Few Things

As this baby continues to grow, I start to feel the pressure to get prepared.There are always more things on my to-do list than get done, but somehow everything that really matters is ready. So far:

I made 5 diaper covers,

all made from my favorite pattern, especially for a newborn, available here. Easy to make and only soft fleece around those tender legs and tummy!

I also made one teeny, tiny all-in-2,

filled with squishy goodness.

And amongst it all, Sarah wanted to do more cooking. So she made some rocky road bars (minus the nuts).

Mmmmmm, they were delicious!

Cherries and Blueberries

12 of us Macks (Josh had to work) got up bright and early Saturday morning to pick cherries and blueberries. In less than 2 1/2 hours we managed to pick 39 pounds of cherries and 28 pounds of blueberries. Sooooo, what does one do with that much fruit?

Well, we froze over 50 cups of blueberries,

canned 28 quarts of cherries,

made 5 batches of blueberry jam,

2 batches of cherry jam,

and made two blueberry tarts.

So delicious! And so worth all the work! :)

What The Macks Had For Dinner

I decided to try a new recipe for dinner last night and it was SO good! All the mini Macks loved it! (except Molly and Leah, but they don't count because they are at that age where they won't eat meat!!) :) The picture doesn't do it justice, but here it is!

Upside-Down Amish Pizza

Taken from the book, The Simple Life 

2 lbs ground beef

1/2 c. chopped onion

salt and pepper to taste

2 c. pizza sauce

Pepperoni slices (if desired)

1 c. chopped green peppers

1 c. chopped mushrooms

16 ounces sour cream

Shredded mozzarella cheese

Ingredients for topping:

2 eggs

1 c. milk

1 tablespoon oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 c. flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown the meat and onion in a skillet. Add the salt, pepper, and pizza sauce. Pour into a 9 x 13-inch pan. Layer with pepperoni, green peppers, and mushrooms. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and cover with sour cream and cheese. Set aside. In a bowl, mix all topping ingredients together and put on top of pizza. Bake for 30 minutes or until done.

Recipe from: Mrs. Jacob Stutzman

The only changes I made were:

to add sausage to the ground beef

to not add onions

to add olives just before the sour cream

to use some cheddar cheese with the mozzarella

Yum! Soooo good!

Wonderful Holiday Weekends

Awww, long holiday weekends....

Wonderful, relaxed days for family time.

We had some yummy food to celebrate the 4th: hot dogs, homemade potato salad, lots of watermelon, and:

white cake with Cool Whip and berries! Yum!

We decided not to spend the money on fireworks this year, and instead roasted marshmallows over our fire pit. (Yes, we had cake and marshmallows in the same evening! It's a holiday, right?) It was delicious and lots of fun!

We hope you had a great 4th of July too!

What The Macks Had For Dinner

Homemade Pizza!

And it was sooooo yummy!

I used the pizza dough recipe found here. It was easy and delicious!

In fact, somebody couldn't wait to start sampling as soon as it came out of the oven! :)

I made two batches of dough which yielded 4 large pizzas and:

a baby pizza for the mini-est of the mini Macks!

When we were eating I heard:

"This is the best pizza in the universe!" ~Ethan

and

"Mommy, you make the goodest pizza!" ~Molly

I think we will definitely have this again! :)

Making Jam

The mini Macks and I spent the first half of today making strawberry freezer jam. Mmmmmm.... it's so good! So far we have 12 batches done, and we aren't even halfway through the 30 pounds of strawberries!

The mini Macks were a big help! Especially when it came time to lick the spoons and bowls! :)

What The Macks Had For Dinner

Wondering what this big family eats? Yesterday we had pulled pork sandwiches for dinner. My recipe is SUPER simple and SUPER yummy!

We buy the two pack of pork shoulder roasts from Costco. I place one of these in the crockpot and throw the other one in the freezer for later.

Next, I pull out the BBQ sauce. We love this one! It's not too strong and kind of sweet! Yum!

I put about half a bottle of BBQ sauce on the pork roast and cover the crockpot.

Set the crockpot to low and let it cook all day!

Shred the roast with a couple forks and add a couple more bottles of the BBQ sauce.

Serve the pulled pork on hamburger buns. We had ours with chips and lots of cantaloupe! Yum!

Tutorial Tuesday

My serger has been having issues, but I had it looked at and it's supposedly working fine. (We'll see!) So, hopefully I can get some more sewing (and tutorials) done! Until then, I thought I would share another recipe, this time for pudding:

We all love pudding, especially homemade, but my old recipe had you cooking and stirring forever! Ugh! So here's my recipe for:

Easy Pudding

2 1/2 cups milk

1/4 cup cornstarch

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 egg yolks

2 Tablespoons butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

First, I gathered my ingredients,

putting the cornstarch, sugar and salt in a bowl together, and beat the egg yolks.

Next, I put my milk in a pan,

and scalded (heat almost to boil) it over medium high heat, stirring occasionally.

Add the dry ingredients and stir. Take the pan off the heat.

Slowly add some of the hot mixture to the beaten egg yolks while stirring.

Then, add the egg mixture back to the pan.

Put the pan back on the heat,

and bring it to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil for one minute.

Remove the pan from the heat,

and add the butter and vanilla. Stir until the butter is melted and allow to cool for a little while.

The pudding is done!

If you want to make a banana cream pie, you can pour this over a cooked pie crust lined with banana slices.

Or, you prefer chocolate pudding? Add 2 squares of semi-sweet chocolate to the milk and continue as normal. (Makes a great chocolate cream pie!)

Prefer butterscotch? Use 2/3 cup brown sugar instead of white sugar and add an extra tablespoon butter at the end!

My kids and I decided to layer our vanilla pudding with Nilla wafers and bananas:

The Nilla wafers get a little soggy, so we ate it quickly after adding them!

But just a plain bowl of warm pudding is super yummy too!

Mmmmm.... Yummy, easy and versatile! :)

Linked at:

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Funky Polkadot Giraffe

Tutorial Tuesday

Today I thought I would share how to make a family favorite recipe!

I got this recipe from my mom. All the mini Macks love it, so it's definitely a keeper! :)

Cheddar Cheese Pan Biscuits

2 1/4 cups flour

1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup butter or margarine

1 cup milk

Turn your oven to 400 degrees.

Then, combine the flour, cheese, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

(This is a quadruple batch, probably not what anybody else's would look like!) :)

Next, add the milk,

and stir just until moistened.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface,

and knead about 10 times.

Put the butter in a 9 inch pan (mine's a 9 X 13 for my bigger batch!),

and place in the oven to melt. Keep an eye on it so it doesn't get browned, especially if you receive a call JUST then from an annoying salesman that will NOT accept the fact that you do NOT want an estimate on any home improvement projects.

Ahem....., next, pat or roll the dough into a 12 X 6 inch rectangle. Then cut into 12-1 inch strips.

Take your pan of melted butter carefully out of the oven,

and dip each biscuit piece into the butter, coating it completely.

Fold each strip in half and place in pan. Continue until the pan is full.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until lightly browned.

Mmmmmmmm, a pan full of warm, cheesy, buttery goodness!

These make a perfect snack!

Or make the perfect accompaniment to a bowl of soup, such as Taco Soup, like we had for dinner! :)

Linked at:

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