Fruit Pizza

I love this dessert.  It's great for the summer time when all the fruit is luscious and in season.  The "sauce" is made of cream cheese, which gives it just a bit of tang.  You can customize it with whatever fruit meets your fancy (or whatever happens to be in season).  Then, you just cut it up into slices like a pizza!  It's easy to make and easy to eat.  Plus, it has fruit on top, so it's got to be healthy, right?

I do have a confession to make before we get any further.  Sometimes, I don't make everything from scratch.  *GASP*  This is one of those times.  The crust of this pizza is just like one massive sugar cookie.  I didn't have time to make sugar cookie dough from scratch, so I used a Krusteaz mix.  They were ah.maz.ing.  Seriously, I'm considering not making sugar cookies from scratch this Christmas.  But, don't tell anybody . . .

Here's what I used:
1 Batch of Krusteaz Sugar Cookie Mix
1 Package of Cream Cheese, softened
2 Tsp Vanilla
1 Cup Powdered Sugar
Various Fruit, cleaned and sliced

Here's what I did: 
1.  Made the Krusteaz Sugar Cookie Mix as directed.  Placed in a large round pan and baked as directed. 

     *Hint:  Obviously, the folks who wrote the instructions for making the cookie mix didn't 
      anticipate that you would be making one massive sugar cookie.  So bake as directed,
      except as to the time directed.  You're going to have to keep an eye on the cookie
      and take it out when it's golden brown.*

2.  After the crust is baked, set it to side to cool.

3.  Mix the cream cheese, vanilla, and powdered sugar.  Set it to the side.

4.  Clean and cut up your fruit toppings.  Put each type of fruit in a separate bowl for topping the pizza.

5.  Spread the cream cheese mixture on top of the filling.

6.  Top the pizza with your fruit toppings.

7.  Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

8.  Cut into pizza slices.

Enjoy!

Blueberry Cheesecake Pie

I was browsing through my mom's cookbooks a while ago because I was in a bit of a recipe funk.  I was looking for something fruity and relatively light as it's still summer.  I found this recipe in a Better Homes and Gardens' New Cook Book (irony:  It's not new.  It's older than me).  In the cookbook, it's called Blueberry Strata Pie and it's on page 241 of my mom's version of the book.  I ended up deviating from the recipe quite a bit, so I'm not sure I can say it's my version of Blueberry Strata Pie; I think it's more like the Blueberry Strata Pie was my inspiration for this pie.  Anyhow, it turned out great.  It was light and refreshing and fruity, exactly what I was looking for.  I'll definitely be browsing through my mom's old cookbooks more often!

Here's what I used:
21 ounces of Blueberry Pie Filling
8 3/4 ounces Crushed Pineapple
8 ounces Cream Cheese, softened
1/4 Cup + 3 tablespoons Sugar
1 tablespoon Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 Graham Cracker Pie Crust
2 tablespoons Cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Lemon Juice
Whipped Cream

Here's what I did:
1.  Drained the Crushed Pineapple, setting the pineapple juice to the side.

2.  Blended the Cream Cheese, 3 tablespoons Sugar, 1 tablespoon Milk, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. 

3.  Stirred the crushed pineapple into the cream cheese mixture.  Mixed well.

4.  Spread the cream cheese mixture over the Graham Cracker Crust. 

5.  Refrigerated the cream cheese and graham cracker crust while finishing the rest of the pie.

6.  Combined the cornstarch and pineapple juice.

7.  Cooked the cornstarch and pineapple juice on medium heat until it thickened.

8.  Once it thickened, removed it from the heat and added the Blueberry Pie Filling and Lemon Juice, stirring until well combined.

9.  Set the pie filling mixture to the side to cool completely.

10.  Once the pie filling was completely cool, I spread it over the cream cheese mixture in the pie crust.

11.  Refrigerated until completely cool.

12.  Top each piece with a dollop of Whipped Cream immediately before serving.

Enjoy!

Blueberry Lemon Muffins

I LOVE blueberry muffins.  I'm always looking for a good recipe for one.  Right now, my favorite is a boxed blueberry streusel muffin mix.  They are ahmazing!  I'm on a personal quest to find something to top the silly boxed recipe.  So I gave these a shot. 


These were really good.  They're in a different category than my blueberry streusel muffins, so I don't even have to decide if they beat the old trusty or not.  Convenient, huh?  The lemon flavor is light, but strong enough to be detected and made these a great refreshing muffin for the summertime.

Adapted from: The Girl Who Ate Everything

Here's what I used for the muffins:

2 Cups Flour

1/2 Cup Sugar

3 Tsp Baking Powder

1/2 Tsp Salt

1Lemon
1 Egg
1 Cup Milk
1/2 Cup Butter, softened (You could you shortening)
1 Cup Blueberries

Here's what I did to make the muffins:
1.  A couple of hours before I wanted to make these muffins, I put 1 cup of fresh blueberries into a baggie, added a couple of teaspoons of sugar, and stuck the baggie in the freezer.

2.  When I was ready to make the muffins, I preheated the oven to 375 degrees and lined a muffin pan with muffin liners.

3.  Mixed together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and the zest from the lemon.

4.  Mixed the eggs, milk, and butter together.

5.  Took the baggie containing the blueberries out of the freezer.  Dumped the contents of the baggie into the bowl and gently folded the blueberries into the dough.

6.  I poured the muffin dough into the muffin tins, filling each tin about 2/3 full.

7.  Baked for about 20 minutes.  Remove them from the oven when they are a golden color and a stick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

While the muffins were making, I prepared the topping for the muffins. 

Here's what I used for the topping:
1/4 Cup Butter, melted
1/2 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
1/2 Cup Sugar

Here's what I did to top the muffins:
1.  Combined the lemon juice and butter in one small bowl.

2.  Poured the sugar into another small bowl.

3.  While the muffins were still warm, but cool enough to handle without burning myself, I dipped each muffin into the butter and then into the sugar.  I then set each muffin on a cooling rack to finish cooling.

This recipe made 12 muffins for me.  Enjoy!

Jubilee

My mom and my Aunt Pat both make this dish in Cherry.  I call it Cherry Jubilee.  I’ve also heard that this is called a dump cake?  I love the cherry version of it, but was looking for something a little different, so I decided to try blueberry as well.  The blueberry turned out just as delicious as the cherry normally does. 

It’s a super simple recipe.  Essentially fool-proof.  AND, it requires that you only dirty the pan you bake it in and a couple of pieces of silverware.  How awesome is that!?!  

Here’s what I used:

Either 26 oz Cherry Pie Filling or 21 oz Blueberry Pie Filling (I couldn't find a 26 oz in blueberry)
20 oz Crushed Pineapple                                        
1/3 of a Yellow Cake Mix, Dry

¾ - 1 stick of Butter, cubed

Here’s what I did:

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.  I opened the pie filling and poured it into an 8 x 8 baking dish. 

I opened the pineapple and drained the juice off of the top (I didn’t drain the whole can).  Then I poured the pineapple on top of the pie filling in the baking dish.

I mixed the pie filling and pineapple together.

I put a layer of the dry cake mix on top of the pie filling/pineapple mixture.

Then I put a layer of the cubed butter on top of the dry cake mix.

            Hint:  The smaller your butter cubes, the more evenly your butter
              will disburse, which will result in a more uniform crust.  To make 
              your butter easier to cut into small cubes, toss the stick into the
              freezer for a while before you cut it up.

I baked the Jubilee for about an hour.  Watch it towards the end to make sure you don’t over cook it.  You want to take it out of the oven when the crust is nice and golden brown.  Here are what mine looked like straight out of the oven:

This is a dish that I think tastes much better completely cool than it does straight out of the oven, so I suggest letting it cool completely before digging in. 

Enjoy!