Keepin’ cool in the Texas heat, with this delicious, cold banana treat.  Adding chocolate and milk but keepin’ it light, this Banana Chocolate Shake will disappear, bite by bite.  I bet y’all didn’t know I was a poet huh?!  Hope y’all enjoy!

Ingredients:

3 whole Bananas, frozen, peeled and chopped
1 cup low-fat Chocolate ice cream
2/3 cup low-fat Milk
Light Whip Cream (optional)

Directions:

Combine bananas, ice cream and milk in a blender and puree until smooth.  Serve immediately.

All it takes is 3 ingredients.  What is your favorite recipe using bananas?  You have to know by now that mine is my grandma’s banana pudding!!! At our Walmart, we have a HUGE display of bananas and I always try to let Truett pick the ones he wants out.  I usually tell him to grab the ones that have a little more green to them since they’ll last longer.  We use bananas in smoothies, protein shakes, oatmeal, bread, and love to saute them in butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, and drizzle it all over vanilla ice cream!

Who remembers these banana Popsicles?  TO DIE FOR!!

Very Berry Pound Cake with BANANAS!

Pina Colada Banana Pie

And Old Fashion Banana Nut Oatmeal

Disclosure: I am an official Walmart Mom. Follow me and my fellow Walmart Moms as we share our experiences and ideas! Walmart has provided me with compensation and gift card in return for my time & efforts to create this post. My participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own, always have been, always will be.

Some of you may already be familiar with Biscoff. They make a delicious cookie but have taken it a step further to create Biscoff Spread. It’s basically crushed up Biscoff cookie deliciousness put into a jar! I made a pie with it, of course. And no, it’s not really a banana crust per se but I did use them in place of a regular crust. How would you eat?

Disclosure: I am an official Walmart Mom. Follow me and my fellow Walmart Moms as we share our experiences and ideas! Walmart has provided me with compensation and gift card in return for my time & efforts to create this post. My participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own, always have been, always will be.

I can’t believe Easter is just around the corner and here in Texas, that means HOT weather is on the way.  We’ve already had some warm days so I’ve been on the prowl for easy, cool desserts.  I’m sure this Strawberry Mousse is something several of you already know about, but I’ll admit, it’s new to me.  I was planning on making chocolate mousse using Philadelphia Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese but couldn’t find it in my small town, so I settled for Philadelphia Strawberry Cream Cheese.  I’m glad I did, it was a big hit here on the ranch!

This is another one of the easiest recipes ever.  I beginning to wonder if I’m smart or lazy ’cause if any recipe requires too much work, I’m outta there!  Anyways, everyone in my house loved it and we had ages of 18 to 5.  Two thumbs up from the Falcon household!  I’m even thinking about taking this is a snack for the kiddos in Truett’s class.  Enjoy y’all!

These are your ingredients….super easy y’all!

Disclosure: I am an official Walmart Mom. Follow me and my fellow Walmart Moms as we share our experiences and ideas! Walmart has provided me with compensation and gift card in return for my time & efforts to create this post. My participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own, always have been, always will be.

Since St. Patrick’s Day is coming around quickly, we’ve been making all sorts recipes; everything from pot of gold treats to shamrock pie.  Since the weather is warming up here in Texas, we wanted to cool things down a bit and decided to make this super easy Lime Sherbert Cooler.  It’s the easiest thing to make and kids love it! Truett helped with the scoops, I poured the drink, and we topped off with Reddi-whip!

Enjoy y’all!

P.S. I was told that I spelled Sherbert wrong, that it should be Sherbet. LOL  Well, I decided to google it and we both are right, although I Sherbet is the most common used.  Oh well….

sher·bet  (shûrbt)n.

also sher·bert (-bûrt) A frozen dessert made primarily of fruit juice, sugar, and water, and also containing milk, egg white, or gelatin.

You may also know this shamrock pie as a grasshopper pie but I like shamrock better. The thought of a ‘grasshopper’ pie just doesn’t sound to appealing you know?  Anyways, some folks use pudding but I chose ice cream!  It’s the easiest recipe ever and looks pretty, leaving your mouth minty fresh!   Nothing like St. Patrick’s Day  to make anyone feel a wee bit Irish eh? Shall we get on with it?

If you’re looking for something for the wee ones, check out these Pot of Gold treats!

Whenever I make desserts, Truett always asks me to make him something special and I really never do.  I thought I’d make him his own St. Patrick’s Day special treat; a Pot of Gold.  Now I realize this looks like a lot of work but it wasn’t bad at all.  And in the end, it made me feel a wee bit good to see Truett get so excited over it.

Disclosure: I am an official Walmart Mom. Follow me and my fellow Walmart Moms as we share our experiences and ideas! Walmart has provided me with compensation and gift card in return for my time & efforts to create this post. My participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own, always have been, always will be.

Oh man, making a car themed cake was more of a task than I thought but I have narrowed my issues down to a couple of things that I’ll get to a little later.  Truett turned 5 years old today and all I could think about was when my two oldest were that age…and how grown they are now.  That means time will fly by again and Truett will be a Senior in no time.

Anyhoo, I decided to make Truett a car themed cake.  And that was issue number 1.  I really didn’t plan ahead.  I was like, “ooohh, it will be fun to make Truett some kind of car cake”….the night before his birthday party.  I know, I’m a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants gal huh.  I quickly knew I couldn’t make a real car cake because I didn’t have the pan and I sure ain’t talented enough to carve one out of layers of cake.  I had seen a track done before using a number 5 so I went that route. I found my big Wilton cake pan and used it,  12x18x2 I believe.  I gathered all the supplies and began. You can find most of these supplies at Walmart in their Wilton section!

(You can click on the photos to make them bigger if you like)

SUPPLIES

• Wilton’s Cake Pan, measuring 12 x 18 x 2
• Wilton’s Grass Tip #233 with icing bag
• Wilton’s Ready-Made Fondant and/or make your own (marshmallows and powdered sugar)
• Wilton’s Icing Colors
• Wilton’s Ready-to-Use Decorator Icing (the big bucket did all the grass and iced the whole cake)
• 3 cake mixes
• and I forget to add things here, I’ll list them throughout the post!

First, I used the pan insert to make a ’5′ template since it was the exact size of the pan obviously, then cut it out.  I laid it on the cake to make sure it looked good.  I mixed all three cake mixes just like the directions said and baked the cake.  One cake mix equals about 4-6 cups of batter.  This pan uses 14 cups of batter which is how I got the 3.

I cooled the cake, iced it with the decorator icing, and put it in the fridge overnight.

It was now time to make the fondant for the track.  Oy.  The last two times I was suppposed to attend Wilton events, I had other personal things going on so I missed out on the fondant learning experience.   Since I know my good friend Cat is awesome at making anything, I seeked out her video on how to make marshmallow fondant.

I greased up my bowl, surface, and spatula.  I melted my marshmallows (160z bag) and put in my icing color, which is issue #2 came into effect.  I had no idea how hard it would be to make black colored fondant.  GRRRRRR!  I didn’t want to add too much because I didn’t want a bitter taste.  Had I planned ahead, I could have searched for this and the best way to get it black but since I didn’t, I went with the flow. I added some black, brown, and a tiny bit of royal blue.  The longer it set, the more dark grey (pavement like) color it got.

I kneaded it and rolled it out.  I laid my template on it and cut the 5 out.

To get the 5 on the cake without it tearing, I gently folded it in half, picked it up, and placed it on the cake.

I used the yellow ready-to-use fondant for the road.  I just rolled it out and used a pizza cutter to make the strips, placing them down the road.

Now, had I been able to make a true black, I would have done the sides with a black and white checkboard effect but since I couldn’t, I decided to do it all in green grass.  Simple fix yes?  I did this pretty sloppy I reckon but I was ready to be done.  I colored what icing I had left in my bucket with Wilton’s Kelly Green Icing Color.  It darkened over time as well.  I placed it in my bag and used tip #233.

I was able to do 3 sides of the cake with green grass before running out of icing so I just hid the other side!! LOL  And this is the final product!  I placed 5 cars along the road with a candle on each car.  I used Cat’s other tip about melting the bottom of the candle just enough for it to stick to the car.  This was a great tip since it doesn’t hurt the car at all!   We lit the candles and made a wish!!

It’s not perfect but like my facebook friend Kassie said, “anything made with Love is perfect”…….

Thank you Wilton for teaching me all that I do know because while this and I’m sure any cakes I do are a challenge, it’s fun to see the end result and make something for my kids, from my heart.

Quick and easy meal solutions are what everyone is craving these days and finding desserts, like this Whipped Yogurt Pie, that are fast fixes are no exceptions.  I brought you a Summer salad using Avocado and Tomato last week, and this week I bring you dessert, both using only 3 ingredients.

What I love about this pie is that you can use ANY yogurt flavor you want to use.  And if you’re really watching the calories, you can use light in both the yogurt and whip cream.  For our dessert, I chose the Pineapple Upside down Cake Yogurt because the very thought of turning that into a pie mixed with whipped cream made me drool instantly.  Not to mention it’s cold which makes it great for the 114′ weather we’ve been having!  Mixing it is a breeze, it’s the waiting for it to firm up in the fridge is what drives me crazy! I hate waiting!

Hope you guys enjoy!  By the way, I always print the Yoplait Yogurt coupons before I buy them.  They have them all the time and every little bit of change adds up!

What flavor will you be making your pie?

Grandma’s Banana Pudding from scratch….there just aint’ nothin’ like this out there that tastes so good!  This is the most requested food dish that family members ask me to bring to holiday get-togethers and any other time I can.  My grandmother made some of the best treats ever and this ranks #1 on my list.  I’m republishing this due to it’s popularity so enjoy and check out her other recipes if you get a chance.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 heaping  Tbsp. Flour…and I mean heaping!
• 1/2 cup sugar or a little more;)
• 2 cups milk
• 2 eggs
• butter
• vanilla
• Vanilla Wafers (save some to crumble for the top)
• Bananas

DIRECTIONS:

In a saucepan, mix flour & sugar then add eggs and mix well.  Start your burner and slowly add milk; a little at a time stirring constantly.  Continue stirring until it has thickened.  After thick, add butter and vanilla to taste.  I would say about 1 Tbsp of butter maybe.  I double this recipe to make a bunch so it’s hard for me to give you accurate measurements.  Not too much vanilla either or it will taste almost chocolatey.  Maybe a 1/4 tsp??  Again, not sure.  Just taste it.

You’ll want to layer your wafer cookies and bananas for a pretty presentation.  I don’t do this though..I throw in a bowl..LOL.  I refrigerate mine over night because I like it VERY cold but you should refrigerate it for a few hours.

Ingredients…..

Here’s all the good stuff cooking in the saucepan……

While you’re cooking the the stuff in the pot, you can slice your bananas and layer your wafers & bananas. Don’t forget to keep stirring your pudding though.

Once your pudding is done, add the butter and vanilla.  Remember, I double my recipe so that’s why there is more in my pudding!

Now that it’s done, you pour into your dish with your wafers and bananas.

This is where the extra wafers come in.  Crush them up and sprinkle on top.

Sprinkle and Viola!

Remember to refrigerate….once nice and cold, sit back and enjoy!!!

This recipe was submitted by Elizabeth T, into March’s Food Challenge, where the theme is GREEN and the prize is a $200 Circulon Cookware Set!  Thanks for entering Elizabeth!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup Milk
• 3 cups sugar
• 2 TBSP Butter
• 1/4 cup syrup (light)
• 1/4 cup Bailiey’s and 2 TBSP later
• Green Food Coloring
• Butter or spray to grease pan

DIRECTIONS

1. Line pan with foil or grease , can be any size, I use a bread pan because it makes more uniform pieces.
2. Combine in a 3-quart or larger sauce pan – milk, sugar, syrup, butter, Bailey’s and about 6 drops of green food coloring.
3. Place on stove, medium heat, stir until it boils
4. Heat to about 235 F degrees on a candy thermometer – DO NOT STIR
5. Remove from heat and cool until it reaches 120 F degrees, add 2 TBSP and another 6 drops of food coloring.
6. Stir or beat, a lot like folding until the gloss is gone. For this recipe it takes about 5 minutes. Pour into greased or lined dish once there is a matte finish. Pour as soon as the gloss begins to go, this is a sign that the fudge is setting. Sometimes my batch sets in the pan. Remember Old fashioned fudge is a bit harder than marshmallow fudge and tends to crumble a bit. It will not lay flat either, part of its appeal is this imperfection.
7. Once it cools you can slice it and serve.

Makes about 3 lbs. This item makes a wonderful gift and is very rich and creamy. It can be adapted for other seasons or made with other liquors. This is a perfect fudge for spring because it is rich and creamy.