Strawberry Pie with Jello Glaze

Strawberry Pie…..so good it’s criminal!  

                                                

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.  

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

Peaches from my tree…they are sooooo sweet! Yum!

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.

PIE CRUST INGREDIENTS…..
 I used 1 cube butter,
 cut in 1 1/3 cup of flour.
 Add 1/2 teaspoon salt
 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. 😀  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 butter 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 withStrawberry Glaze Ingredients and Directions
1 cup of water
2 tablespoons cornstarch   Mix first 3 ingredients….

Put it in a saucepan on the stove till it is smooth and when it is bubbling….boil  for about 2 minutes. Then take it off the heat.
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.

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….
J

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 piece of Fresh Strawberry Pie for breakfast…NOT ME!
I’ll be dreaming of this Strawberry Pie  for awhile……mmmmm good!

Chili Dip, Greek Yogurt Dip, Raspberry Chipotle Dip

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!

4th of July Cupcakes with the Best Icing Ever!

Today Grandpa opens his pool. We all go up for a BBQ and we celebrate 4th of July too!  I think I’ll bring some cool fireworks so Tyler our resident pyro can have some fun.  AND some fun 4th of July cupcakes to share with all the relatives!
                                        

Happy 4th of July! Snap, Crackle, Pop! Did you hear that all night?  





The girls….





There were lots of little girls…lots of cousins the same age too! 3 were born a few weeks of each other!





My son Jeff, and Wendy his wife,  and little Josie, 1 year last week!



Megan got brave and wanted to do the slide and diving board…..she has no fear I swear!



John with his granddaughter Josie



Grandpa always does a BBQ for us at the 4th of July Party…Here is John and his dad, Don Moss.

 I looked online and found lots of cute decorated cupcakes with the patriotic red, white and blue theme going.  I really wanted to find some I could use with blueberries and strawberries because I bought a HUGE package at Costco and I need to use them up since Johnny isn’t such a fruit lover….as much as I am!
                                      

My 4th of July Decorations on my entry table…

So on Diana’s Desserts website I found a simple 4th of July cupcake decorated with marshmallow whip and real cream that sounded great, and it uses the 2 fruits.  It looked very cute too so I decided to copy. Thanks Diana! Her website link is HERE.

They turned out really yummy.  I used cream cheese and marshmallow whip and cool whip because I thought the real whip cream would melt in the heat.  They were marvelicious!  Mmmmm…..I’m thinkin’ of one of those babies right now! 

4th of July cupcakes from Hoosier Homemade… 

                              

Another cute decorating idea was from Cupcake Heaven’s ideas at Hoosier Homemade. Her link is HERE.
I liked the red licorice striped cupcakes with the little candy blue balls.  I have some peel apart red licorice so I will try that one too.  And maybe I can come up with some little picks in a patriotic theme. 

Dining Room decorations for 4th of July….
My 4th of July cupcakes!
Uncle Sam and my patriotic quilt…



My finished chocolate 4th of July Cupcakes! Yummo!

 So my cake is chocolate… I always add about a 1/2 cup of sour cream and a small chocolate pudding mix.  It makes it a lot richer……and my icing I made with Marshmallow Creme (fluff stuff) about a cup or so, and cream cheese (about a half of a large block) and about a cup of Cool Whip. I just mess with it till it looks and tastes the consistency I want. And I gave it a little 4 drops of lime juice for a kick.  It is sooooo delicious!  You can also use it as a fruit dip. It’s to die for. 



I found some little flags and stuck them on toothpicks and added them to the tops of my 4th
of July Cupcakes for red, white and blue decorations!  





These 3 ingredients make THE BEST ICING EVER!  (or fruit dip)



Marisa and Megan my granddaughters rocking in the hammock….so cute!

Happy 4th everybody!  We all sure had fun at grandpa’s pool and BBQ party!