Lemonade Truffles

I started today out with a healthy fruit salad. It wouldn't be right not to have a light sweet to balance out the day, now would it?

I was tromping through Pinterest like I am wont  to do ...daily. Yes, I'm a Pinterest junkie. Electronic hoarding at its finest! Well,  I came across a lemon truffle recipe, started to read the ingredients and then my tablet went wonky and I lost the link.
I didn't even get to finish reading it! All I remember is lemon cake mix and butter.

Anyway, I decided to try to come up with my own version when I realized I don't have lemon cake mix. Story of my life. I don't usually keep that type of thing around as it makes it too easy to eat poorly.
But, I did have a small box of Jiffy Yellow cake mix left over from a dump cake I made a couple weeks ago for a friend's going away party.


So I glided into the kitchen to make my own concoction.  I plan to take them to work...that way I can eat one or two and give away the rest. Great plan, right? See the pattern?  Make it and take it!

Ok- here's what I did:

Ingredients
1 box Jiffy Yellow cake mix
3 caps lemon juice
3 T Butter, melted
2 1/2 t Lemon Juice powder
Sugar for rolling (I used 1/3 c and had leftovers)

I forgot to take a picture until I was half-done rolling!

Dump your cake mix and lemon juice into a bowl. Mix well. Add lemon juice powder to melted butter, mix well, and add to cake mix.
Stir well until everything combines.

Add remaining 2 t lemon juice powder to sugar

Pinch about a 1/2 to 1 teaspoon mix and roll into a ball. Roll in lemon sugar.
Place on plate. Repeat until mix is gone.

These are good with coffee or tea, great for a luncheon or as a small treat to tucked into your husband or kids lunch.

Have fun!

PS- Lemon juice powder does contain corn syrup solids (NOT high fructose corn syrup!). You can substitute the lemon juice powder with lemon peel powder if you prefer.

Healthy Summer Fresh Fruit Salad

Oh how I love strawberries. I really do. When they are out of season, I purchase the big bag of frozen strawberries from the wholesale club.
I also love blueberries. Back when I was a wee lass, my family took our vacations 'back east' to Nova Scotia for mom's family reunions. I loved them. Especially since grammie had wild blueberries growing on her property. I remember many hours with grammie spent in her kitchen along with my aunts making blueberry jam from scratch. Yes, blueberries bring back fond memories for me.

Well, I was down to my last few frozen strawberries, a pineapple that desperately needed cutting up, and time on my hands.
I looked around at the fruit on hand and decided to throw together this simple, fresh, fruit salad.
It screams summer. It really does...and healthy?  Talk about getting your daily allowance of fruit! You'll need someone nearby to take the bowl out of your hands and spoon out of your mouth.

I find myself going to the fridge and grabbing a small bowl of this fruit salad at least three times a day. I hope you love it as much as I do. This salad is so versatile. You can use honey and add basil, you can add a pinch of cinnamon and honey. You could even add a dash of nutmeg or even some mint.

Amounts can be varied to your liking, but the basic is this:

5 strawberries, cut in half or quarters, lengthwise.
1 banana
3/4 c blueberries
1/2 fresh pineapple, sliced in small chunks
2T sugar (or sweetener of choice like stevia or honey)
Pinch salt

For the bananas, have a bowl of 1/4 c lemon juice and 1 c water handy. Slice bananas directly into lemon water and let sit until done slicing rest of fruits.
Slice fruits and place in large bowl.
Drain lemon water off bananas.
Add bananas to rest of fruit in bowl.
Add sugar and salt
Stir.
Refrigerate for at least an hour. The sugar and salt helps pull liquid out of the fruit creating its own syrup. Which is fabulous, very lightly sweet and a perfect coating for the fruit.

Serve with or without whip cream. (I prefer mine without.)
This is also a great side dish to burgers or bbq!

PS-Why lemon water? Well, it helps keep the bananas from turning brown and adds another layer of fresh.

Drastic Plastic...a way to contain the mess within.

Everyone has plastic bags in a bag, right? Or is it just me?  I used to have one of those rectangular kitchen bags with elastic at the top and bottom for holding the bags....but the elastic was no match for the sheer number of bags I kept stuffing into that thing!

Honestly, plastic bags are bulky. But they are good for so many different things.
I use them to line my small bathroom trashcans. Or to iron together to make plastic 'cloth'. I haven't yet, but I hope to try to make a plastic rug out of them one day. One day.

In the mean time, my kitchen plastic bag holder went kaput. I have plastic bags in a plastic bag hanging on the rack near the back door for some time now. NO MORE!

Yes, I'm a nerd. Or a geek if you prefer. But seriously, 42 bags in a nut container? Wow! Talk about saving space. I thought about using a large plastic pickle jar...but I don't eat pickles so I don't have a plastic jar. Of course if I did, it would absolutely be holding plastic bags...and I would decorate it, too. Maybe wrap it with some contact paper? The possibilities are endless.