Lovin' this warm Spring Weather

I am so loving this beautiful warm spring weather. I've started working in my flower beds this weekend and it is starting to look really nice. Under my crepe myrtle tree next to the house, I planted lots and lots of periwinkles (vincas). There are a variety of color mixed together and I think it will look really nice, especially when the crepe myrtle tree blooms. Our garden is comming along nicely, no fruit on the vines yet but we are seeing blooms now so that is definitely encouraging. I planted some elephant ears a few weeks ago and they are just now peeking up from the ground. I think this week I will work on clearing out a flower bed on the other end of the house. We already have a lantana planted there in the middle, but I'm planning on making a flower bed from end to end and filling it up with more lantanas. I especially like the pastel yellow and pink ones. I hope I can find some that color, most of the time the ones you see are bright orange.

Today, while my husband was burning brush, I happend to look down and spot a ripe dew berry, so that sparked us to look for more. We found a few around the house but then decided to take a nice drive along a dirt road in the country and found several ripe ones along a fence line. I think if we go next weekend there will be lots more ripe ones. It seemed like we picked forever and ended up with only a quart size bag. We want enough to be able to make a couple batches of jelly and of course dew berry cobbler. Doesn't that just sound delicious.....I can taste it now with a big dollop of homemade vanilla ice cream. Mmmmm Mmmmm !!!!

I will share with you a couple of recipes using dew berries and also one for homemade vanilla ice cream.

DEW BERRY COBBLER

3 cups fresh fruit (dew berries or whatever you want to use)
water to cover fruit
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup milk
1 cup sugar (for fruit)
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar (for cobbler)
1 stick butter
Combine fruit, 1 cup of sugar and water (just enough to cover fruit). Simmer for 5 minutes. Mix together flour, baking powder, sugar and milk. Melt butter in pan. Pour batter over butter then add fruit. Bake 350 degrees until done. Remove from oven and sprinkle with remaining 1 cup sugar. Return to oven for another 10 minutes. Serve hot with vanilla ice cream.


DEW BERRY SOUR CREAM PIE
(my mother-in-law's recipe)

1 pie crust
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs
dew berries (enough to fill a pie shell)
8 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 cup sugar
dash salt
1/2 cup sour cream
4 Tbsp butter
8 Tbsp sugar
Place berries in pie shell; mix 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1/2 cup flour, salt, eggs and sour cream. Pour over berries. Mix together 8 Tbsp each of the flour and sugar and cut in the 4 Tbsp of butter until it is like coarse crumbs. Top the pie with this mixture and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.


HOMEMADE VANILLA ICE CREAM
(my mother-in-law's recipe)

9 eggs
3 cups sugar
1 can Eagle Brand Milk
1 can Pet Milk
3 Tbsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
enough whole milk to fill the canister
Beat eggs thoroughly. Add sugar gradually. Beat until thick. Add remaining ingredients; mix well. Pour into a 6 quart ice cream freezer. Finish filling with whole milk to the fill line. Freeze as directed in your ice cream freezer. This makes 1 1/2 gallons.