Quick and Easy Summer Cooking Tips

For easy snow cones, freeze orange juice (or any other juice in ice cube trays. Store frozen cubes in a plastic bag. When you are ready for a snow cone, place 5-6 cubes in the blender and blend until they have the consistency of shaved ice.

Get out some of those leftover chocolate Easter bunnies and melt them. Dip chunks of bananas in the chocolate. Roll in nuts, coconut, or sprinkles and lay on a tray and freeze. Store them in a plastic bag or container to have quick cool snacks instantly when you hear those words once again: "I’m hungry. What’s there to eat?"

When making homemade ice cream or homemade fudgesicles:

For fudgesicles, add 1/2 envelope of powdered whipped topping (like Dream Whip) to your mix before freezing.

For 6 quarts of ice cream, add 1 envelope of powdered whipped topping to your mix before freezing. This gives everything a creamier taste.

Add peanut butter to chocolate sauce and pour over vanilla or chocolate ice cream.

When making potato salad, add the dressing to the warm potatoes. It will absorb the flavor better and give you a better taste.

When you use cornbread in one of your menus, why don’t you suggest cornbread flapjacks in the summer time? That’s what I do. I use the very same recipe as I do for cornbread but instead of putting my iron skillet in the oven to bake the cornbread, I just fry it on top of the stove like flapjacks. Saves energy and heating up the kitchen. The kids will eat the leftovers (if there are any) with syrup or honey. Keep up the great work. Blessings, Kathy

When grilling, add extra amounts of meat (chicken, steak, hamburger or sausages) to the grill and freeze. These extras are great to use at a later time on their own or to add an extra special smoky taste when crumbled or sliced into dishes like chili, stew, Sloppy Joes, etc.

photo by: rubbermaid