I have served this dessert for the 4^th of July and other special occasions for many years. It is a favorite of my daughters and her friends and also gets raves from my friends.

I usually tend to make food from simple and fresh ingredients, but this recipe has several processed ingredients that I would normally not use. Just taste this and you will see why I break my rules for this one. It is truly delicious; the ultimate comfort dessert!!

Banana Cream Pudding

1 14 oz. can of Sweetened Condensed Milk

1 ½ cups cold water

1 3 oz. package instant vanilla pudding mix

2 cups whipping cream, whipped

36 vanilla wafers

3 medium bananas sliced and covered with enough lemon juice to moisten each slice

Directions

1. In a large mixing bowl combine condensed milk and water. Add pudding mix and beat until well blended. Chill for 5 minutes.
2. Fold in whipped cream.
3. Spoon 1 cup of pudding mixture into a 2 ½ quart serving bowl. Top with one layer of each the vanilla wafers and the bananas. Repeat layering ending up with the pudding mixture on top.
4. Chill thoroughly.

Garnish as desired.

Serves 8 to 10

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I have a collection of treasures I’ve found on the beach stored in my kitchen drawers. I like to take out some of the sea treasures and play, creating pleasing arrangements and using them for summer decorations around the house. They are so much fun to use in tablescapes at my beach house. I make additions and rearrange them to keep the compositions fresh and fun. They also work great framed on the wall.

Here I have wrapped seaweed around coralline algae and muscle and scallop shells. I added another variety of funky pink seaweed and I fixed everything in place with gold sealing wax. The possibilities are endless! You can also use superglue for a permanent hold.

To mount these 3-dimensional collages on the wall, superglue your finished product to matt board and frame. It’s are a great project for the whole family to do together.

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What’s more beautiful than fresh flowers in your home? This time of year I don’t have any large flowers blooming or large amounts of blooms. So, this is a great time of year to make small, sweet bouquets.
This morning I went out to the garden and picked pansies and some lovely patterned leaves. A good trick to making a great bouquet from your garden is to arrange as you pick. Instead of picking a bunch of flowers and taking them inside to rearrange, I arrange them one-by-one, in my hand, as I am picking them.
I used one large leaf as a frame for each small bouquet. To secure the arrangement, I wrapped wire around the stems to hold them together and preserve the arrangement. Any type of thin wire works.
When I got inside, they were ready to drop into water. I chose two antique chemistry beakers. I’m a huge fan of antique chemistry glass. I always keep an eye out for them at second hand stores and antique shops. They make such elegant vases!

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I love to beach comb! I’m always astounded by the beautiful finds at the beach here on the Oregon coast. Many times the tangled trails of ocean debris, at the edge of the high tide line, appear as if there is nothing worth collecting. However, if you look closely and unwind the snarls of seaweed, there are treasures to be had!

To make this nest, I untangled and gathered together many strands of wet seaweed. I then loosely wound them around the bottom of a glass to dry. This created the lovely seaweed nest.

The larger egg in this nest is a rock I also found on the beach. The smaller is a White Crowned Sparrow egg. I found this egg in my garden at the beach house. The White Crowned Sparrows makes their nest on the ground. While digging out an old lavender plant in the garden, I unfortunately disturbed a nest. I’m so sorry to have destroyed the humble little home, but I do appreciate this little speckled jewel of an egg.

I am terribly fond of this little makeshift nest and its eggs. I have it displayed on an old brown crockery plate and the combination graces my dining room table at the beach house.

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Earlier this spring I purchased two garden urns from Judy Hillman at Madrona Hills Ace Hardware here in Salem, Oregon. I was attracted to the elegant form and the charm of the woven metal trellis patterned urns.

I wasn’t sure where they would end up but after moving the urns around my garden, I found just the right spot! Now comes painting, placing and leveling.

HERE’S HOW TO DO IT:

1. I set up on my kitchen table for a dry, clean place to work. I cleaned the surface of all dust and rust and then I used throw away foam brushes to paint the urns.
2. It’s important to create some kind of base for planters that you put directly in the garden so that the container drains properly and sets straight. I used 8 cut in half, recycled bricks to form a circle an inch larger in diameter than the urn bases. First I leveled the ground by eye and then set the bricks in the soil with a rubber mallet. I used a level to get them perfect.
3. I used sphagnum moss to line the urns and wrap around a separate pot inside the urn. I used a recycled pressed paper pot. This set-up will make it easy to remove the plants and put the urns away for winter.
4. The last step was to add the plants! I divided a large clump of hostas from the yard to plant in the urns.

The paint I chose for the urns is the same as my front trellises. Several years ago I matched color chips to the green copper roof above my front door and discovered Benjamin Moore’s Waterbury Green (HC-136), also from Madrona Hills Ace Hardware. I love this color in the garden because not only does it match my copper roof, but because it also looks stunning with all of the various colored blooms that are climbing and nestled in and around the trellises and urns.