Recipe

Homemade Mint Milkshake

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My husband and boys love March. It’s shamrock shake time. However, it seems to be hit or miss as to whether or not McDonalds will actually have them and if the shake machine is working.

Very similar to the caramel frappe – they are actually super easy to make!

Vanilla ice cream (whatever kind you like – this stuff was on sale BOGO)
milk
mint extract (not spearmint, not peppermint – mint)
green food coloring (optional)

I put in 3 scoops of ice cream, enough milk to cover it, 1/4-1/2 tsp of mint extract, and 2 drops of green food coloring. It’s all very un-exact.

I use my immersion blender to mix it all together, but you could just stir it with a spoon until it’s well blended. Of course, if you have a fancy blender, that would work great I’m sure. You can add more milk if it’s too thick or more ice cream if it’s too thin.

Enjoy!

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Lemon Cookies

As I mentioned here, we have a lemon tree that produces an amazing amount of lemons. Every year I struggle to use them all. I’m not a fan of eating lemons straight off the tree…neither is my family. They do, however, love lemon flavored things. One of their favorites are these lemon cookies. I’ve altered the recipe a bit so there’s no extracts and all the lemon flavor comes from lemons.

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Zest of 2 large lemons
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup salted butter at room temperature
1 large egg
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (or all the juice from the 2 large lemons)
granulated sugar for rolling cookies

I don’t have a zester, so I use my cheese grater. It works almost as well…it’s just a pain to clean.

You don’t need a fancy juicer. This little do-it-yourself one works just fine.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Using a mixer, beat together butter and sugar until smooth and creamy.
Add lemon zest, egg, and lemon juice. Mix until combined.
Gradually blend dry ingredients into the butter/lemon mixture.
Roll rounded tablespoons of dough into balls and roll in sugar. Place on baking sheets, about 1 1/2 inches apart.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until cookies are slightly brown around the edges. Let cookies cool on the baking sheets for two minutes before moving to a cooling rack.
Enjoy!

Do you like lemon cookies? What is your favorite lemon recipe?

Original recipe here.

Cucumber Salad

This super easy, delicious salad is perfect for summer or any time really. It’s light and refreshing – just what you need for these hot, hazy days (which according to my hubby is everyday here in SWFL). The original recipe calls for seedless cucumbers, but I’ve used regular cucumbers and it still tastes delicious! It’s super simple.

2-3 medium cucumbers, sliced
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup white vinegar
2-3T dried dill weed

Slice the cucumbers to desired thickness

Slice the cucumbers as thin or thick as you want them. I usually like them thin so they absorb lots of the flavor!

Mix the remaining ingredients in a 2 quart container with a tight fitting lid. Shake until mixed. Add cucumbers. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Enjoy your salad!

What to Do With Lemons

We have a lemon tree that produces an abundance of lemons every year. That would be great except we don’t care for lemons (or homemade lemonade) and even if we did, who can eat bags and bags of them? I hate to waste them so I’m constantly trying to figure out what to do with them. I normally give away as many as I can, juice some of them and freeze the juice in ice cube trays to have for baking or lemon water. After that, I’m lost and my compost heap is well fed.

Lemon Tree My sister-in-law gave me two great ideas! One was cookies – while I’m not a fan of lemon flavor, the rest of my family loves it. SIL found a cookie recipe and made them for us. They were actually pretty good….so I made a batch and they came out just as good! There are actually a bunch of recipes on her site that use lemons…I may have to try some of them out too.

Lemon cookies

She also found a recipe for dishwasher soap. I’ve made homemade laundry soap and use it from time to time (I’ve been finding great deals on my favorite brands at CVS so I haven’t made laundry soap in ages!). I made dishwasher soap once and it was a flop! It hardened and was a pain to measure out. This time, I only made a single batch and I followed the directions carefully. I’ve been using it for a couple weeks now and it works just as good as the name brand I normally buy. Plus it’s a whole lot cheaper! I didn’t have to buy anything (I had the coarse salt leftover from last time and the other stuff I had on hand). I will say that I did NOT strain my mixture. I don’t have a strainer, so I just blended it really, really well!

Making dish washer soap from lemons

I’ve been juicing lemons and freezing them in egg trays (I think my ice cube trays met with an unfortunate end), I’m going to chop up some lemons for future batches of dish soap, and I’m freezing some lemon peel for the cookies. I still need more ideas (seriously, we had at least 5 shopping bags full!), but I’m not putting as many lemons in my compost heap this year!

Juicing lemons

Do you like lemons? Any great ideas for what to do with an over abundance of them? I really do hate feeding them to my compost.

Lemon Tree

What to Do With Leftover Turkey

What to do with Leftover Turkey

At Christmas, we were given a precooked turkey. I didn’t need it since we already had plans for Christmas dinner so I put it in the freezer. A couple weeks ago I pulled it out (it was taking up a lot of room!) and let it defrost in the fridge for a whole week (it was frozen solid!). We grilled it (and by we, I mean my parents). It was almost 18 pounds and even with nine people eating, there was a lot leftover. We reheated some of it, but some people are not fond of reheated turkey. *coughcough*DH*coughcough* I love it cold! When I can convince my kids to try it, they like it too. This time they finally tried it while I was grinding it up.

Eating cold turkey

I’ve had this grinder forever. It was my mom’s and she decided that I used it more than she did, so it’s mine now.

Old fashioned meat turkey grider

After picking most of the meat off the carcass and grinding it all, I ended up with a nice bowl of ground turkey.

Ground Turkey

If you like turkey meatloat, then you’re all set. However, my family is not into blonde meatloaf, so I mix it with ground beef and then freeze it. Sometimes I make a turkey salad with it – add a bit of Miracle Whip, some onion salt, garlic salt, maybe some celery seed. Sometimes I also add some pickle relish to it. Mix it up and put it in a pita. Mmm!!