M Emry

Sandy - why don't you make Trifle?  It's my favorite dessert.  The catch is - you have to mix and match your flavors to make something unique.  So far I have made our family traditional (raspberry gelatin with strawberries, vanilla pudding and bananas), a chocolate cherry version, and one I call "Sunshine Trifle" with lemon pudding, orange gelatin, mandarin oranges, and coconut and pineapple in the whipped cream.  So  you have to pick a gelatin flavor and a fruit to go with it, and a pudding flavor with a fruit that may or may not go with it.  Feel free to add a garnish!

Trifle - an ooey, gooey, layered dessert

Layer 1:

Flavored Gelatin
Fruit
Angel Food Cake

Cut the fruit into bite-sized pieces (or wash the fruit and leave it whole in the case of berries). Tear the angel food cake into bite-sized pieces and mix with fruit in a bowl or in individual serving dishes.  Prepare the gelatin and pour it over the cake/fruit mixture. Chill until set.

Pudding
Fruit or other addition (optional)

After gelatin layer is set, prepare the pudding.  Mix with fruit if desired. Spread on top of gelatin layer. Let pudding set.

Whipped cream
Slices or pieces of fruit from initial layer as garnish or other additions (optional)

Prepare whipped cream according to personal preference. Spread on top of gelatin layer.  Garnish as desired.  All three layers should be in relatively equal proportions.

Serve and watch everyone's enjoyment with great pleasure!

Greetings!  I am blessed to live in a place where I can practice what I am learning - and very grateful to have a place to learn it!  

I live in the exceedingly green Pacific Northwest, less than 2 miles from the ocean.  Not 20 miles north of my house, the road pretty much ends.  You have to go inland to go farther north. So we are the last stop before nowhere, almost.

I currently have too many animals for my 1 acre of clear land (the house takes up some space and trees the rest on the remaining acre). We have 1 sheep, 5 goats, 5 ducks (with more on the way - both hens are sitting on nests), and about a dozen chickens with potentially  more on the way (one of the ducks has chicken eggs in her nest - not by our plan!).  I started gathering animals before I knew what I was doing and have been failing spectacularly at farming ever since - and my gardens are a hiss and a byword so far as growing goes - although I am having some success with garlic this year!

I have wild huckleberries that thrive, blackberries that only don't thrive because the goats have managed to eat them up (mostly), rhododendrons, blueberries, and a few raspberry plants.  Oh, and did I mention the trees?  Lots and lots of trees.  We live on the edge of a ridge - enough that it is flat across the front of our large yard to the road, but we have a daylight basement in back.  The lower ground tends toward marshy - we have a bumper crop of mosquitos every year, despite the birds.  Past that back yard, we have another downward slope, thickly populated with trees, ferns, moss, and mushrooms.

I really want to learn how to make the most of the land I have - making it a place that will last generations.  If I ever get my place paid off, I wouldn't mind being an Otis - my husband and I don't have any children and we aren't young - not old yet, just not young.  I definitely want someone to come after us that will know how to care for this place - and wouldn't mind someone coming before we are gone to make this place really work.  Meanwhile, I'm going to try to learn what I can myself.