Dressing Up Frozen Waffles

How easy are frozen waffles? I just love them...it's just that they taste like frozen waffles. Not very tender, not much flavor or taste, just there on your plate ready to cure hunger in a pretty lack luster way. Whatever you think about them, they are a great blank slate ready to dressed up and shown off. We go through a lot of waffles after we have been to the farmer's market. Any fruit topping is a yummy topping for the frozen waffle. So, let's dress our waffles up and show them off!



We are essentially going to make blueberry pie filling, add a dollop to some to whipped cream, and pile it all up on the frozen waffles. The board of ingredients is pretty humble ingredients across the board except for those amazing {Michigan} blueberries. The berries we are getting are so big and sweet this year. They are a work of art all on their own. I love you blueberries. Good thing you are so healthy.



To begin, we are going to make a sweet, thick gel for the blueberries to go into. It's so easy and so good. Start with water and one cup of blueberries in a medium sauce pan.

Add the sugar, lemon juice, corn starch, and salt.



Then give it a good stir. Make sure the starch is dissolved in the water before you turn the heat on.



Turn the burner onto medium heat and stir constantly until the liquid comes to a boil and thickens and the blueberries burst open.



Turn the heat off and add a pat of butter. Stir until the butter is melted.



When the butter is melted and completely stirred in, add the rest of the blueberries. Stir the gel and the blueberries together making sure to coat the berries.



In a bowl add some heavy whipping cream, a bit of lemon zest, sugar and a tiny pinch of salt to flavor the whipped cream. Whip the cream until stiff peaks form.



Add a generous spoonful of the blueberry mixture.



I like to stir it just enough to give it a marbled effect. Stir all you would like though. Once my kids start 'helping' this will be stirred up within an inch of it's life. ;-)



It's time to eat. Let's fix a plate. Start with some frozen waffles and a big scoop of the blueberry mixture that we made.



Then add a nice dollop of the blue whipped cream on top. {My stirring helpers arrived and everything is very incorporated.} My oldest teen will have this polished of in no time.



Strawberries are even easier to use. Just slice them up, add a bit of sugar, stir and let them sit for a few minutes. Add a generous scoop to your whipped cream and the rest of them can go right on the frozen waffles. So yummy.

Blueberry Pie Filling

Ingredients:

4 Cups Blueberries, Divided
2/3 Cup Sugar
3 Tablespoons Corn Starch
1/8 teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
1 Cup Water
1 Tablespoon Butter

Directions:

1. Combine one cup of blueberries with sugar, starch, salt, lemon juice, and water in a medium sauce pan. When starch is dissolved, cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until liquid boils and thickens.
2. Remove pan from heat. Add butter, stirring until completely melted and incorporated.
3. Add Blueberries and stir.
4. If you were making a pie you would poor the mixture into a pie shell and chill.
5. If you are dressing frozen waffles up, add some to whipped cream and top waffles with blueberries.
6. Enjoy!


For a printer friendly version of this recipe click here.


I am joining Stone Gable for On The Menu Monday and la bella vita for Seasonal Saturday and Fresh Food Friday.

Budget Buster - Do It Yourself

We love this love seat...except for a few things.  It's way out of date.  It's faded.  It's broken down.  It needs lots of Febreeze because...

Miss Priss thinks it's her bed. {We've let her think that.}  She has not figured out that she is a dog yet.  She is pretty sure she is a short human.   

Look at her so annoyed with the paparazzi showing up during her private nap time.  I think she is thinking: Really?  I just want a nap, lady. 

Anyway, back to needing a love seat for actual humans.  I wracked my brain.  How could I squeeze a new love seat into the budget?  I just could not do it.  Even if we gave up eating every other meal, I could not make it work.  Then as I was flipping through the technical college's summer catalog I found this...
 

I called up and got permission to bring in a love seat and the rest is history.  I went back to school.

I was assigned homework. 

I went shopping for school supplies with my BFF.  Shout out to Kim in Bama!  :-)  {This was actually a souvenir from when we went down South for the 4th of July weekend.  The South has great text tile stores that we do not have up here in Wisconsin.}

Good by ugly fabric, hello beautiful brick red. 

I took notes, used scissors and chalk.

I traced...

...and played on the floor.

Is this cheating on my homework?  {Actually, this is extra credit.}

Stay tuned to see how everything turns out.

Breakfast Parfaits

I have three teenage boys and a little girl {12 is not so little anymore, but she is little to me!} with a high metabolism that are eating me out of house and home! Their ideal breakfast is four batches of baked oatmeal. {Four batches is 6 cups of oatmeal!!!} Are you kidding me?  Anyway, this is a cool breakfast for a hot a summer morning. {And it cures hunger which is sometimes hard to do with those kids.} This is such an easy {non-recipe} breakfast to make.  Plus it is healthy and great for a crowd!

The board of ingredients is pretty simple to gather up. I usually buy vanilla flavored yogurt, but they were out this time. You can make things even more simple by getting two different flavors of yogurt instead of mixing in your own flavors like I am going to.  Peaches, cherries, any berry you can think of, plums, or apricots also work really well in these parfaits. I just happen to be using bananas and the raspberries that the kids picked yesterday. I am going to flavor the yogurt with Willow Cottage Raspberry Sauce. Any granola you like will be great to use here.

Start by dividing the yogurt in half.  There is about two cups in this bowl. 

I am using about a quarter of a cup of the raspberry sauce and a few fresh raspberries to flavor the yogurt.    {I also added a bit of sugar since I was not starting with vanilla flavored yogurt.}

To make my plain yogurt into vanilla I am just mixing in a few drops of vanilla and some sugar. 

I am using a wide short glass for the parfait.  I love the morning sun shining in on the cutting board. 

You can layer this up any way you would would like to.  I am starting with a few spoons of raspberry yogurt.

Sliced bananas...

Granola....

Vanilla yogurt....

Raspberries...

And finally some more granola, a spoon and a sprig of mint {to make it pretty} finishes it off.

Enjoy!

My Bedroom

I cleaned my bedroom!  I wanted to give you a quick tour before it got messy again.  Our bedroom gets a lot of action and it gets pretty messy pretty quickly.

In the summer time the kids haul their bean bags up and we all watch a movie together.  Sunday mornings the kids wake us up and hang out until hubby and I get up and get moving. {Sometimes the boys make muffins for breakfast and haul everything upstairs so we can have a little picnic in/on our bed.  I have a coffee stain on the flat sheet, but that's okay with me.  It reminds me of that special morning.}

In the winter we have been known to pile up in the bed and watch a movie on Friday night when we are all ready for some together/quiet time.  It amazes me that our teenagers still are willing to hang out with us on a Friday night.  I love our bedroom just because I have so many special family memories of laughing and being together.   

Silly Tip ~ I took the standard sized pillow shams from the bed set, folded them in half length-wise and hung them on the bar the sheers are hanging from.  They made perfect window valances on either side of the bed. Cheap and easy.

One thing I love about living in a super old house is the interesting nooks and crannies.  Our bedroom is shaped like a big cross.  This is my ironing nook.  {I hate ironing and I avoid it all costs!}  But when I can no longer put it off, I love looking out at the trees and listening to the birds. 

Our entertainment and reference center.  I love how neat and orderly everything is here. 

Opposite of the ironing nook is our desk.  It is missing the little ottoman we use as a seat because it is getting a makeover.  More on that later.  We just finished putting this little corner together and I still need a few more pictures of the kids on the wall and shelf.  I am looking for garage sale frames that I can paint black and add black and white photos to.

I would love to say that I get a ton of blog work done here as I had originally planned to do.  But I have to admit, I do most of my work on the couch in the family room in the middle of the ciaos of a busy family.  I guess I am just hardwired to work that way.  But I still love my pretty space that is waiting for me whenever I need to get away from the kids. 

Our little bench used to be yellow.  I found it at a hotel furniture outlet and it was super cheap because it was a horrible yellow plaid.  For now, the bench/coffee table is in the middle of a makeover.  We spend a lot of time on this day bed.  I watch the news here in the morning and sometimes Joel and I get some time to watch a television show together here.  Love this comfy spot.

I made the 'LOVE Matters' before I started blogging.  I dis-assembled a framed poster.  I left the poster in place and painted over the picture with some of the paint I used to paint the walls.  Then I took scrapbook paper and cut out the LOVE.  Matters is free handed with a paint brush and some black acrylic paint.  The whole project was the cost of the scrapbook paper and one tube of black acrylic paint.  {$5.00 total cost!}

I am joining Lipstick and Laundry for Sky Blue Sunday.

Root Beer Floats...For Adults Only

Hey everyone, drinks at our house this weekend. Come join us on the patio for a few drinks and lots of laughs. The summer weather has been begging us to enjoy the patio and dock. Who are we to stay cooped up inside when we could be outside enjoying ourselves.

I have a big tub of ice cold beer for the fellas. For the ladies, I am serving grown up root beer floats. I am trying Bobby Flay's Root Beer Floats. What could be more perfect for a lazy summer evening?  Does anyone remember  Hot Off the Grill with Bobby Flay?  He was so cocky way back then, but what always impressed me were his cocktails.  When I saw that Happier Than a Pig In Mud was hosting Celebrity Cook Along featuring Bobby Flay, I knew I would be making a drink. I am not a huge drinker, but when I do have the rare opportunity to sit down and enjoy an adult beverage, I want something really good. I like this drink because it is so simple to make and a tiny bit of bourbon goes along way flavor wise.

The board of ingredients is pretty simple.  Old fashioned root beer, bourbon, ice cream, and whipped cream.  I never would have thought to add whipped cream to a root beer float, but Bobby Flay said to do it!

Start by adding a few scoops of ice cream to some pretty glass mugs.

Then add a splash {or more} of bourbon.  I prefer to go light on the bourbon.  Too much bourbon reminds me of a bowl of ice cream with brandy poured on top. The bourbon also makes the drink less sweet  {which I like} but it's not what you expect of a traditional root beer float. 

Old fashioned root beer is perfect for this drink.  Make sure your root beer is super cold.

Let the foam settle down a bit.

Add a bit more root beer, a dollop of whipped cream and some stirring sticks.

A colorful straw and a few pretty napkins left over from the 4th of July finishes the drink and makes it so pretty.

Cheers!

Bobby Flay's Root Beer Floats

Ingredients:

* 1 pint(s) vanilla ice cream
* 2 bottle(s) very cold old-fashioned root beer
* Splash bourbon (optional)
* Freshly whipped cream, for garnish (optional)

Directions:

1. Spoon a few scoops of vanilla ice cream into 2 tall float glasses. Pour the root beer and bourbon, if using, slowly over the ice cream and top with a dollop of whipped cream.  Enjoy!

For the recipe click here.

I am linking up to Celebrity Cook-Along at Happier Than a Pig In Mud and Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum.