It’s Monday and I have a few fun things to post today.
Yesterday I shared a picture of a delicious (and healthy!) Strawberry Jello Fruit Salad I made via Instagram.
We’ll come back to that in a second.
In the past, I have dedicated entire posts to recipes. While making the recipe, I would take and post a picture of each and every step. Although this might look nice, I am starting to think the pictures get in the way and interrupt the directions.
From here on out, I am going to save you from scrolling and include an ingredients picture and a shot or two of the finished product.
Sound good? Great.
Another thing I want to change is dedicating an entire post to a recipe.
Until I am able to blog full-time, (which, yes, that would be the dream) I going to stick to posting once a day, Monday – Friday. Some posts run on longer than expected, and I think about breaking things up and adding afternoon posts into my weekly schedule. Worried about consistency, I am sticking to one a day until I am home at the computer for a full work day.
With that said, I’m sorry… but you’re going to have to enjoy reading a mega-post every now and then.
Ceramic Painting Party
Saturday night we celebrated Katie’s birthday. She was my roommate in college and we are still very close to this day… clearly.
We met at All Fired Up in Winter Park to paint our own ceramic pottery. I had my eleventh birthday party at a similar place and hadn’t painted a ceramic since!
I convinced myself to paint something practical that we actually needed and settled on a spoon holder to go on top of the oven. It’s currently being “fired and glazed” and I will see the finished product when I pick it up next weekend.
Towards the end of the party we celebrated with a traditional Funfetti birthday cake.
In college, we made this cake for every birthday we celebrated together. It’s still a favorite of mine, so I continued the tradition and brought the cake with me to paint pottery.
I can’t show you a picture of the final products (yet), but I can tell you we had a contest for Most Creative Ceramic. Can you guess what won?
I’ll share that and more about ceramic painting when I get my spoon holder back! *I know the suspense will be killing you.*
Four hours later, we gathered up and headed next door for some sushi and saki.
We were a special group and spent the rest of the night singing impromptu karaoke. And yes, that is my husband Katie has in a choke-hold.
I’ll sum up karaoke at a sushi restaurant in four photos:
1. Randomly selected pop hits, (mostly Kelly Clarkson, Beyonce and Avril Levigne) behind a nature scenery slideshow.
2. Ballads sung by these guys.
3. Monkey Faces.
4. High-pitched and off-key notes, mostly from yours truly…
… and a whole lotta’ fun. Happy Birthday, Katie O!
Sunday Poolside
Sunday was a breeze. Scott and I went to church, then spent the afternoon around the house and downstairs by the pool. This NEVER happens!
I enjoyed a full hour of soaking up some sun and read through a good portion of Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back.
It’s a true story about a little boy named Colton, told through his father, Todd Burpo. Intruiged by the title? Me too.
I can’t put it down and will be sure to report a glimpse of this four-year-old’s story later this week.
Time in the sun called for a cool, summer treat when I got inside. Enter the jello salad!
Strawberry Jello Fruit Salad
Growing up, I adored JELL-O. I loved the traditional glass container you had to spoon a serving out of and the fun shapes of JELL-O JIGGLERS even more.
Although you can’t necessarily play with this Jello, the refreshing fruity taste makes up for it. This recipe comes straight from my family’s recipe book, and can be served as a dinner side or even dessert!
Ingredients
1 large package of Strawberry JELL-O (makes 8 1/2 cup servings)
1 1/4 cup water, boiled
1 cup (about 8 large) frozen strawberries
1 cup chopped almonds, pecans or walnuts
1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 full bananas)
1 pint sour cream (I used low-fat)
1 large can crushed pineapple (no sugar added)
prep time: 15 minutes
ready in: about 1.5 hours
Directions
1. Boil water for jello. *DO NOT use recommended water amount on box, just 1 1/4 cups. In a large mixing bowl, stir boiled water into jello packet mixture and set aside.
2. Mash bananas, chop nuts and set aside.
3. In a blender, blend pineapple chunks, strawberries and nuts. *Depending on the strength of your blender, you may be able to skip chopping the nuts before hand.
4. Add blended mixture to jello liquid in large mixing bowl.
5. Add mashed bananas. Mix well.
6. In a medium sized casserole dish or glass pan, make the first layer by pouring in half of the jello and fruit mixture.
7. Spread sour cream on top of first layer, making a second. Cover with cellophane and place in refrigerator to congeal.
8. Once congealed, add third layer by pouring in the remainder of the jello and fruit mixture.
9. Cover and place in refrigerator to congeal.
It only took about a half an hour for each layer of jello fruit salad to congeal.
It is a lot thicker than regular jello, but takes less than half the time to enjoy!
You can eat it as is, or add a thin top layer of whip cream.
I used Fat-Free whip and didn’t hear any complaints about it.
😉
Some prefer the old fashioned whip cream swirl approach.
Fun to do and yummy to eat. With whatever you decide to do…
Enjoy!
Questions
Did you do anything fun this weekend?
Do you prefer me to separate recipes into their own posts?
Tanya
That Jello looks amazing! I’m going to have to try it. Thanks for sharing!!
Heather
Thanks Tanya! Let me know how it goes 🙂