The following is a guest post by Liz at Hoosier Homemade.  You may remember her from when I shared her awesome Memorial Day cupcakes.  She is now bringing you this delicious and beautiful looking 4th of July Trifle.

Thanks so much Mercedes for having me! I’m just thrilled to be sharing this fun Trifle Dessert with you and your readers!  Fourth of July is one of my favorite Holidays! I love decorating, cooking and especially baking for this fun Holiday! But, along with the Holidays, come extra expenses and trying to stay within my grocery budget can sometimes be difficult.

I enjoy sharing this Trifle Dessert! It is a low cost dessert to make, can be changed to fit your taste, and everyone always loves it whenever I take it to a cookout or get-together. Not to mention it looks very impressive, it looks like you spent several hours on it, but it’s actually very easy.
Trifle Dessert:

• Trifle Bowl or large vase with straight sides
• Cake, brownies, cookies or even cupcakes work just fine (Cake mixes are $.88 at Walmart)
• 2 tubs of Whipped Topping (I buy mine at Aldi’s for $.89, but you can often find Cool Whip on sale)
• 1 box Vanilla Instant Pudding ($.45)
• 1 container of Strawberries ($1.19 at Aldi’s this week)
• 1 container of Blueberries ($1.99 at Aldi’s this week)
• Decorations (sprinkles and stars made from Candy melts, if desired)

Directions:
Bake cake, brownies, cookies or cupcakes, cool and cut into pieces. Place on bottom layer.
Mix pudding as directed on box, place in fridge to set. Then fold in 1 tub of Whipped Topping.
Spoon over cake layer. Then slice strawberries and add on top of pudding.
Add a layer of Whipped Topping, about 1/2 the container. Then repeat layers.
I added a few Blueberries on top, for color. Blueberries are a little more expensive than strawberries, it would take probably 2 maybe 3 boxes if you wanted to add them to the layers.
To make the Trifle Dessert more festive, I added a few sprinkles and some stars made from Wilton Candy Melts. I also used some of the stars when I created my Fourth of July Cupcakes.


This dessert goes a long way, feeding at least 25 servings. You definately get a lot of “bang” for your buck with this Fourth of July Dessert.

Liz is the Hoosier Momma from Hoosier Homemade. She is a SAHM of 3 teenage boys, that keep her running with their sports and school activities. Most of the time you can find Liz creating her cupcakes for Cupcake Tuesday. But, she also shares her baked goods, Budget Friendly Meals, and decorating tips and tricks, all to help you “Make Your House a Home.” And when she’s not at Hoosier Homemade, you can find her having a party over on her new blog, It’s A Blog Party. You can follow along with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Last week Ihad a lot of fun reading the many ways you use Carnation Evaporated Milk.  Some of you have found very many creative ways to use it and some of you learned new ways to use it.  Today I want to share a recipe that will serve a double purpose.  Not only will you be able to use in-season apples but also the Carnation Evaporated Milk you have on your cupboards.  I call this recipe for German Apple Pancake the “Endless House guest Pancake Recipe.”  Because if you make it for a guest at your home not only will they ask for you to make it again

but they also won’t want to leave!

My husband who’s from Chicago, loves having apple pancakes from “the Original Pancake House.” I know I have a lot of readers from Illinois so I know a lot of you know how good those pancakes are.  Getting an apple pancake there is a must on every trip we take to Chicago.  After trying lots and lots of recipes (including one published by the Chicago Tribune and supposedly used at the Original Pancake house), the recipe I am about to share is the best one.

German Apple Pancake (serves 4-5 people)

Ingredients:
4 large eggs
1 can of Carnation Evaporated Milk
1.5 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
6-8 tablespoons unsalted butter (or butter substitute like Smart Balance)
4 medium tart apples peeled, cored and sliced
1 cup packed brown sugar
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon.

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
First, mix together the eggs, milk, flour and vanilla. Beat until there are no lumps and set aside.
In a 10? or 12? nonstick pan that’s oven safe, melt the butter over medium heat. Saute the apples slices for a few minutes until they start getting soft. Mix in the brown sugar and the cinnamon.
Remove pan from the heat and pour batter over the apple mixture in the pan. Place pan in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes or until pancake is puffy and golden. Remove from oven and let sit out for a couple of minutes. Then place a large plate over the pan and flip the pancake onto the plate.
I hope you would check out this recipe.  I can assure you will not be disappointed.  Enjoy!

Tomorrow is my son’s birthday party.  While I have figured out the cupcakes, goodie bags and entertainment, I needed help in the grown up food department.  The party is to be held after lunch but I wanted to have a small appetizer people could enjoy while there.  But I didn’t want it to bee too much work or too expensive.  I stopped by Costco looking for a quick alternative but what they had available was more money than I wanted to spend.

So I turned to Twitter for advice.  I asked my followers for ideas on a cold appetizer I could make that could be enjoyed by adults and children at the same time.  Here are some of the helpful ideas I received in response:

Cents of Savings

Amy's Finer Things

Cents to get Debt Free

Momliciousdeals

Saving Everyday

All of the ideas are great, simple and budget friendly.  but ultimately I decided to go with the roll-ups.  Originally I wanted to make turkey roll up, but couldn’t find a recipe I liked.  The recipe shared by Amy looks so good and easy to make.  It looks perfect to eat at room temperature and can make even a day ahead.  These were all things I really needed in this case.  I just bought all of the ingredients and it was a total of $3.97, since I had salsa and sour cream in my pantry.

You will find the link to the recipes shared by clicking on each image.  I want to thank Amy, Andrea, Samantha, Phoebe and Sandy for helping me out when I really needed.  how about you, do you have any ideas for easy to make and delicious cold appetizers?

Image Credit

Yesterday afternoon before I started making dinner I had a change of heart.  The plan initially was to defrost some pot roast, make roasted sweet potatoes and broccoli.  But my tummy was not asking for that, what I really wanted was pasta with alfredo sauce.  That was a problem because I don’t keep jarred alfredo sauce or half-and-half to make the sauce from scratch.  BUT I did have milk and cream cheese and I figured I could make that work to satisfy my craving.

The recipe I was working with called for:

• 1 (12 ounce) package linguine pasta
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 4 tablespoons diced onion
• 4 teaspoons minced garlic
• 40 small shrimp, peeled and deveined (I substituted with cubed cooked chicken, I keep in the freezer for nights like this)
• 1 cup half-and-half
• 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
• 6 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
• 4 sprigs fresh parsley

Instructions:

1. Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling water until al dente; drain.
2. Meanwhile, melt butter in a large saucepan. Saute onion and garlic over medium heat until tender. Add shrimp; saute over high heat for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in half-and-half. Cook, stirring constantly, until sauce thickens.
3. Place pasta in a serving dish, and cover with shrimp sauce. Sprinkle with black pepper and Parmesan cheese. Garnish with parsley.

So instead of using a cup of half-and-half, I substituted with about 1/3 cup of cream cheese and 2/3 cups of milk.  I really didn’t measure either the cream cheese or milk because I was looking more for a creamy consistency.  When I got to that point I tasted the sauce and well it didn’t really taste like alfredo sauce (or at least the taste I wanted).  So I pulled out the Parmesan cheese.  I *love* Parmesan cheese.  My husband often jokes that I eat pasta with my Parmesan.  So I grated about  1/4 cup of Parmesan and added it to the sauce.  When it melted I added the warmed cubed chicken and the cooked pasta and it was ready to eat!  Well, not before adding another 1/4 (or maybe half?) cup of Parmesan cheese to my plate.  I did say I love Parmesan.  Using Pecorino Romano cheese would have probably been better for my taste but I didn’t have any of that.

I love that frugality is about resourcefulness, inventiveness and experimenting.  I am glad my experiment worked out so great this time.  It gives me courage to experiment again the next time I am missing a recipe ingredient.  What kind of ingredient substitutions have you made that have worked for you well?

Here’s one last cooking tip:  If your sauce turns out to be too thick, add some of the water you used to cook the pasta in.  The liquid will help thin the sauce and the starch from the past will help the sauce bind better to the pasta.