I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!

I didn’t realize this was a lyric from a song, but who doesn’t scream on a hot summer day, “I WANT ICE CREAM”!

I have had this recipe since the 70’s and it is so quick and easy. Who doesn’t want desserts that are quick and easy to throw together when company’s coming. I’ve made this with regular ice cream and this time, I made it with a Light Blue Bell Vanilla.  This recipe has everything that most people like -crunchy texture, vanilla ice cream, caramel and nuts.

Every time I hear an ice cream truck I think of living in Kansas City. There was a little girl in our neighborhood that would go screaming all the way home “ice cream man”…… if she heard or saw the ice cream truck in our neighborhood. She’s all grown up now and I would imagine she still loves ice cream and I’m sure she still remembers the ice cream man from our neighborhood.

We are already up in the 90’s in our part of Texas and this will be in my freezer so on a hot summer’s night, we can pull it out and have a bite of cool, refreshing dessert. I think you will agree with me after you try this that it’s delicious.

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How about putting some of that summer produce to use with these Zucchini Corn Boats.

This is a delicious recipe using zucchini and corn that you may pick up at your local farmer’s market this summer.

I love going to farmer’s markets in the summer and getting all kinds of wonderful locally grown produce. I purchased some corn and zucchini recently and just love making these little boats. I have made this often and think they are so cute.

If you don’t want to fool with trying to make the boats then I have put all the mixture in an oval casserole and put some corn husk at each end and pile in the corn/zucchini mixture. Looks like a big corn cob. Then you can just sprinkle all the chips and cheese mixture on top and bake in the oven or out on your outdoor grill. This is a great accompaniment to your summer bar-b-q.

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That ain’t my grandmother’s banana pudding — BUT it is!

These cute little jelly jars make the perfect containers for this rich banana pudding.

My grandmother always made the best homemade banana pudding and she still could if she wanted to. She just turned 97 in May and is still occasionally cooking up things in her kitchen. Her banana pudding was always from scratch. She would get out all her ingredients, slice her bananas and make a rich, sweet, homemade custard to layer between the bananas and vanilla wafers and then top it with a fluffy meringue and brown it just the right amount in the oven. We could hardly wait for it to be chilled so we could dig into a big bowl of the pudding.

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Ok, so smoked salmon on a potato chip — who would have imagined a quick little appetizer!

I had these little apps at a friends house a couple of years ago. It’s such a weird idea to me to put something like smoked salmon on a potato chip. I used smoked salmon in other things that I garnish with caviar, boiled chopped eggs, red onion and capers but NEVER potato chips.

On an afternoon’s sailing trip that my daughter, Alexis and I and my twin sister and her son took in Charleston last Labor day I packed this appetizer in a small softsided cooler that I put in my suitcase because I knew we would take this out on the boat. After shopping at a local gourmet grocery, Caviar & Bananas for some cheeses, pates, sausages, breads, and wines, which they delivered to our boat, our smoked salmon on potato chips joined this array of scrumptious food for the day’s outing.

We had rented this 49 foot sail boat just for the four of us and we actually had a stewardess who waited on us. We didn’t expect to be waited on but after all the food was delivered to the boat, she organized everything and after we set sail (hey, sounds like sailor talk, huh), she came up (two bedrooms and two baths plus full kitchen below) to see what we wanted to drink and then she started arranging small plates of food to bring up for us to eat. This was a fantastic lunch and she prepared the little chip and salmon thing for us and it was a perfect accompaniment to all the other goodies along with champagne and wine. We offered to share with them but, of course, they refused, but did say they would be glad to enjoy anything leftover after the trip. 

This is the perfect little appetizer that you can have in your refrigerator ready for any drop in company this summer. You can also use the cream cheese with chives spread that comes already made instead of making the cheese mixture from scratch. Kettle chips or some type of thick chip works best, although I have used Pringle chips.

These are so quick to throw together and I love my little trays I picked up at Hobby Lobby.

These lasted about a couple of minutes once I put them out.

Smoked Salmon Chip

1/4 c. parsley

3 oz. cream cheese

1/2 tsp. grated lemon peel

1 tsp. lemon juice

salt and pepper

36 whole potato chips

4 oz. smoked salmon

Process the parsley in a food processor until coarsely chopped. Add the cream cheese, lemon zest, juice and pinch of salt and pepper. Process until pale green and smooth. Scrape the cream cheese into a zip lock bag. Squeeze it down to one of the bottom corners of the bag and snip 1/4″ off the corner of the bag. Top each chip with 1-2 pieces of salmon, pipe on a dollop of the cream cheese, garnish with small parsley leaf.

**Note.  I put the cream cheese mixture on the cracker first and then topped with the salmon and then a parsley leaf. You can do it however you want. Also, I used Kettle Chips because they are a thicker chip. I have used Pringles before but they are pretty fragile.

I Saw this grill at the Austin Food and Wine Festival and knew I had to have it.

We were at the Austin Food and Wine festival back in April this year and one of the vendors was doing sausages on this grill. My husband drug me over to see it and I knew that  we just had to have this for our backyard cookouts.

Over Memorial Day weekend we used this several times. First we did these sausages and peppers. Then we cooked (my son and husband did all the cooking on this) some serranos and jalapenos that we did in a little chicken broth and soy sauce and then roasted them on this grill. Believe it or not I found out how to take the heat out of the jalapenos. The first night we did them we could hardly eat them because they were so hot. Then I tried something I had read online and it worked. (more about that later.)

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