Strawberry Pretzel Dessert and #Library Card Adventure

How’s your summer going? If you love hot weather, I’m sure you are really enjoying the steamy temperatures we’ve had in Michigan recently. I personally am not a big fan of high temps and sticky humidity, but I know for some of you it’s just the ticket. All I can say is, thank goodness for air conditioning! 😊

This past weekend we wanted a light, summery dessert, one that did not require turning on the oven to bake. I recalled a strawberry pretzel thingy I used to make and dug out the recipe. Turns out I did have to bake the crust, but for only ten minutes, and so I decided it was a go.

And I’m glad I did. It was delicious, with a great mix of salty and sweet because the secret ingredient in the crust is pretzel; and cream cheese in the middle layer giving it that yummy cheesecake taste as well.

I ripped this recipe out of a magazine many years ago, so I cannot give proper credit to the creator because I do not know who that is. If I had to guess, I think it may have been from a free Kraft magazine I used to receive in the mail. And that would make sense, as they are the manufactures of PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, and probably created the recipe to help sell cream cheese. In any case, it’s a recipe worth trying. Here we go…

What You Need

2 cups finely crushed pretzels

½ cup sugar, divided

2/3 cup butter or margarine, melted

12 oz. cream cheese, softened

2 Tbsp. milk

8 oz. container of COOL WHIP Whipped Topping

2 cups boiling water

1 pkg. (6 oz.) JELL-O Strawberry Flavor Gelatin

1 ½ cups cold water

4 cups fresh strawberries, sliced

What You Do

1.) Heat oven to 350⁰ F.

2.) Combine pretzel crumbs, ¼ cup sugar and butter; press into bottom of 12x9-inch pan. Bake 10 minutes. Cool completely.

3.) Beat cream cheese, remaining ¼ cup sugar and milk with mixer until blended. Stir in COOL WHIP; spread over crust. Refrigerate until ready to use.

4.) Add boiling water to gelatin mix in large bowl; stir 2 minutes until completely dissolved. Stir is cold water. Refrigerate 1-1/2 hours or until thickened. Stir in berries; spoon over cream cheese layer.

5.) Refrigerate three hours or until firm.

As you can see, it’s a pretty simple recipe that is easy to prepare. You have to be patient and allow plenty of time for the JELL-O to set, but other than that, it doesn’t really take a lot of time to make. We thoroughly enjoyed the results. 😊

I hope you get a chance to give it a try.

#Library Card Adventures

I’m going to change direction here and ask you if you’ve ever heard of a Library Card Adventure? It is an invention of Instagram, a tag used by libraries to create some fun. The basic premise is that when you’re traveling and taking pictures of sites, you pull out your library card and take a picture of it in front of the site. Or, you could just be out and about around town, say at the park or your local farmer’s market, and snap the photo. Anywhere you take your library card on an adventure does the trick. And then you post the picture to Instagram, tag it with your library’s name, and hopefully it gets reposted to the Instagram account.

I’ve been doing this for years and have gotten some pretty weird looks from people probably wondering why I’m taking pictures of my library card. Oh, well. It never stopped me from doing it the next time. 😊

Taking the picture can be a bit tricky. Because your library card is up close, and the spot you’re photographing is in the distance, one or the other is going to be a bit blurry as the other becomes the focus of the camera. You can either let the card be fuzzy and the site in focus, or vice versa. I normally want the library card in focus and allow the site to be fuzzy, because it is a LIBRARY CARD adventure after all.

Are you traveling a bit this summer? Or, having stay-cation fun at home? Either can be great settings for library card adventures. Might you try taking some library card adventure photos yourself and share them with my blog? If you do, please email me at graib@cidlibrary.org and I’ll include them here in a future post. Or, they might just get reposted to our @cidlib Instagram feed. We’d love to see what adventures you’re having with your library card this year.

Meanwhile, I’m going to share with you some of my favorite library card adventures from my own travels the last few years. They're fun to do. Give them a try!

Whether you are out and about, or vacationing at home, please be safe. And please wear your mask. 😊 Take care!