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A Simple Summer Dessert Family and Friends will Crave!

I don’t much care about cooking and will avoid it as much as possible. Summer’s the time I let my husband do most of the cooking outside on the grill. That is why I am always looking for ways to do what I must do in the kitchen and get back to what I love doing. However, times do exist where I need to make something special. This dessert recipe gets rave reviews when I share it at summer church picnics and family reunions.

Instructions

In a large bowl, mix together the eight ounces of cream cheese with the strawberry Jell-O with a mixer until smooth then mix Cool Whip into the mixture again mix until smooth.

Into the premade Graham cracker crust spoon one half of the mixture.

Now, spread most of the strawberries over the cream cheese mixture in the graham cracker crust. Save out the best-looking strawberries to use as a topping. Drizzle the chocolate sauce

Next, spoon in the rest of the cream cheese mixture, carefully smooth out the surface. Be careful not to touch the edges of the graham cracker crust as you smooth because this will cause the smooth to mess up the crust.

Now into the second container of Cool Whip, add the tablespoon of cocoa and mix thoroughly until you have a smooth chocolate Cool Whip. Put this into a piping bag (or a quart-sized plastic bag) and pipe peaks onto the pie. Once your pie is totally covered with these, decorate with the strawberries you saved out and drizzle chocolate sauce over the pie.

Refrigerate the pie for at least one hour before serving. To upscale the dessert, try replacing the strawberry gelatin and strawberries for raspberries.

Make Cleaning the Coffee Maker and Microwave a Breeze

Now that you’ve saved time by in making this delectable dessert, let me show you a couple hacks that I use in the kitchen that save even more time cleaning a neglected coffeemaker and microwave.

My favorite kitchen cleaning hacks involve cleaning the coffee maker and cleaning the microwave. I do them together and it doesn’t take longer than 5 minutes even if the microwave hasn’t been cleaned in weeks.

I start with the coffee maker. I put a ¼ cup of vinegar into the reservoir and run the coffee maker until the vinegar starts to come through into the pot. I then stop the flow of the vinegar so that vinegar stays in the waterlines while I start cleaning the microwave.

To start the microwave cleaning process, I soak a piece of paper towel in vinegar and put it on the turntable in the microwave. Next, I pour about an ounce of water unto the vinegar-soaked towel and then run the microwave on high for about one minute. This creates steam on the inside of the microwave.

I now go back and run the rest of the vinegar through the coffee maker. While that is doing its thing, I go back to the microwave and carefully wring out the paper towel that you have in the microwave (its hot!) and use it to wipe out the inside. Then use another paper towel to dry it out. Now use that same vinegar-soaked paper towel and wipe over the outside of the microwave. I dry it with the dry paper towel to make the outside shine. The vinegar smell will dissipate over time and it does dispel of other odors that are commonly found in microwaves.

Now, pour the vinegar in the coffeemaker down the drain and run a potful of water through the machine. Once that is done, dump the water down the drain and clean the coffeepot inside the carafe and clean the outside of the machine with a little more vinegar to make it shine.

The entire process of cleaning both the coffeemaker and the microwave should take no more than ten minutes.

Like to know what I would rather be spending all my time doing? Check out my website at http://www.cygnetbrow.com

Robert McCray dreamed of the day when he would marry Lillian O’Hare. He went north with his father, Uncle Luke, and Cousin Isaac to Northwestern Pennsylvania. He built a shed behind the cabin to set up his blacksmith shop. The only tool that he needed was the anvil. Little did he know that in a matter of hours, all his dreams would come crashing down.

Judith Campbell was the eldest of Duncan Campbell’s three daughters. After her father lost his farm in a rigged land grab, he decided to take up the US government’s offer to Revolutionary War veterans to settle on lands at no cost in unsettled parts of the country. Duncan and his family become neighbors to the Thorton and McCray families. There the three families bind together to survive the hardships of the wilderness. What does the future hold for Robert and Judith?