Hello there! Hoping you all had a great 3 day holiday weekend and were able to enjoy the festivities with yummy food and fun activities!! My parents and their dog and our daughter came to celebrate with us. My daughter’s boyfriend wasn’t able to make it due to a sinus infection, and he was missed, but we had a great day together! We were able to get in a small hike on our trail with company, hangout in the pool with  the dogs and each other, great conversation and delicious food!

On Sunday, our town had their Independence Day parade, and summer celebration where the center of town is shut down for everyone to walk and visit with tons of vendors selling their wares, enjoy live music, and lots of fun festivities. After the festivities, we spent the rest of the day by the pool, enjoying leftovers from the BBQ and relaxing.

We’ve been very busy filming for our YouTube channel and doing many different projects with renovations at our cottage home. The garden has been the main focus this past spring and this summer. The weather has been lovely, so that has helped tremendously. Feel free to visit our channel to see some of our projects!

Cone visit us sometime:

Our Brambleberry Cottage channel

Over the weekend,we made a delicious, and simple trifle for dessert for the BBQ. It was delicious and festive looking. Here’s the simple recipe:

Star Spangled Trifle

*Make a day ahead of time to give time to melding the flavors together and giving trifle time to soften.

Ingredients:

1 box Pillsbury Gluten Free yellow cake mix (follow directions on box, but I used organic melted and cooled coconut oil instead of canola oil)

1 box of Jello lemon instant pudding ( follow directions on box, I mixed with almond milk instead of dairy milk)

3 – 1 lb. packages cleaned and dried strawberries

2- 1 pint packages cleaned and dried blueberries (I do have blueberries growing at this time of year in my garden, but there weren’t enough available for this recipe that day)

3 containers of cocowhip whipped topping (If frozen, defrost for hours before placing in trifle)

Directions:

1) Make your cake according to directions on box (see my notes in ingredients list). Set aside. Cut into squares when it’s cooled- Cool completely before cutting)

2) Make pudding according to directions on box (see my notes in ingredients list). Place in refrigerator and let it set for a couple of hours.

3) Clean, rinse and pat dry all of the berries.

4) Take defrosted cocowhip containers out.

5) Using a trifle bowl, start layering. I started with cut strawberries, sliced and laid down all over bottom of dish. Then next layer was some spoonfuls of cocowhip and spread out over top of strawberries, then cut square pieces of cake all on next layer. The next layer was, some pudding spread on top, followed by blueberries scattered on top, the cake, strawberries, whipped topping, and keep going until all ingredients used. Keep stacking. I finished with blueberries on top.

6) Cover with plastic wrap and serve the following day. It’s pretty and festive, and quite yummy!! I like how simple it is too!! Enjoy!!