Art of Natural Living

Five Ingredient Homemade Caramel Dip (or Syrup)

By Inger Jul 12, 2025 Condiments, Preserving & More, Desserts & Snacks 10 Comments

With just five ingredients, and ready in 10 minutes, this homemade caramel syrup (or dip) is fun, quick, and easy. Perfect for sundaes, dunking apples, topping pancakes and more.

Drizzling Caramel Syrup

Caramel syrup is often considered a fall food–but it’s actually perfect all year round.  In summer, you can drizzle caramel syrup on ice cream sundaes, then in fall make a tasty caramel apple dip.  In winter, you can warm up with a caramel latte, and then serve salted caramels for Easter or Mother’s Day.  Yum!

Now this recipe is pretty simple with two things that I especially like about it.  First, it doesn’t require a candy thermometer–something that I know can be intimidating.  And second, it only uses ingredients most people have at home: sugar, butter, milk, vanilla and salt.

Even better, it’s really versatile and can be turned into a thicker caramel dip or thinner caramel syrup just by varying the amount of milk you use.

The recipe makes about a half cup of syrup or dip, though you can double it if you need more.  Of course since I finished eating the leftovers with a spoon (shhh), I’ll be sticking with the smaller batch!  Read more

Chai Ice Cream

By Inger Jul 9, 2025 Desserts & Snacks 8 Comments

Sweet, spicy and slightly exotic, Chai Ice Cream delivers the rich flavors of a Chai Latte along with the refreshing chill of an ice cream dessert.

chai ice cream cone

I love the complex and spicy flavors of a good chai latte.  But when summer’s heat rolls in, I also want a refreshment with maximum chill. 

Enter Homemade Chai Ice Cream!

Now in case you’re not familiar with Chai Latte, it’s a creamy beverage of milk and black tea infused with rich spices like cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and cloves.  Think of it as a tea lover’s answer to all those fancy coffee drinks. 

And now that you can have it in ice cream form, it’s uniquely satisfying.  Especially when the thermometer heads toward 90!  Read more

Summer Berry Salad with Limoncello

By Inger Jun 28, 2025 Fruits & Vegetables, Salads 10 Comments

With mixed fresh berries, accented by tart lemon & a hint of boozy limoncello, this Summer Berry Salad is a perfect dessert or side. 

Summer Berry Salad

Recently, I was looking for some light new recipes. And book club came through again. What would I do without these talented ladies!

At our monthly meeting our hostess served a lovely Fresh Berry Salad with Limoncello.  Similar to my simple macerated fruit salad, the one was made exclusively with berries plus an accent of lemon—boozy if you’d like.  Yum!

It was hugely popular on book club night and an equally big hit for family dinner!  ‘Cause who could resist a medley of glorious summer berries accented with mint and lemon!

This Summer Berry Salad works as a tasty light fruit dessert or side and would also be welcome for a brunch or summer potluck.  And with the brilliant reds and blues, this would be perfect for your July 4th menu as well. Read more

Strawberry Rhubarb Galette

By Inger Jun 26, 2025 Desserts & Snacks 3 Comments

Sweet, tart, and fruity with a crunchy crust, Strawberry Rhubarb Galette is a tasty summer dessert.  And it’s “easier than pie”!  Make it while you can!

Strawberry Rhubarb Galette

Have you had your share of strawberry rhubarb desserts this year?  Well, I think there’s always room for more.  Especially if it’s super easy like this Strawberry Rhubarb Galette. (Check out my Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble Pie for the next easiest!)

If you’re not familiar with a galette, it’s kind of like a freeform small pie.  Per Wikipedia a fruit galette “resembles a type of single crust, free-form pie with a fruit filling and the crust folded partway over the top of the filling.” 

And this provides some distinct advantages!

First, since it’s freeform, it’s easier to pull together than pie—no fitting into a pie pan or crimping crust edges.  Then since it’s smaller than a pie, dieters (or small households) can eat it up (my husband and I finished this within 24 hours–shhh).  

Finally, since this has the same ingredients as a Strawberry Rhubarb pie, it delivers the same tasty flavor and fun!  Read more

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