Tidy Tips For Your Waistline

A few weeks ago, we had some friends over for "Sundae Sunday". It was a fun night of cards games, talking with friends, and ice cream. Truth be told, I am not really an ice cream fan. I can hear everyone gasping now, but it's true. For years I wasn't really a milk drinker, and after working at Cold Stone Creamery through high school, I just didn't care for ice cream. I am more of a sherbet kind of gal.

That being said, I have a friend who brought the most amazing VANILLA ice cream I have ever had. Vanilla plain and boring, is one flavor I almost never eat, especially plain. That is, until I tried the Tillamook french vanilla. It is amazing!!

The problem with ice cream is that it's load of fat and calories in every bite, especially the good stuff. So, to help me eat the leftovers in a way as to not gain 5 pounds, I made a game out of portion size. I tried to find the smallest thing to eat my ice cream in. That happened to be my son's KALAS cup from IKEA. I almost used the bowl, but the cup was smaller and a more appropriate portion size. A 1/2 cup of this particular ice cream is 160 calories and 9 grams of fat. Can you imagine if I used a regular bowl? Eek!

I have been trying to do this a lot with my portions lately. Especially snacks. I eat my snacks out of small ramekins (usually around the 6 oz size). It really works well. My servings are usually less than 200 calories. Small is better.

Do you have any tricks to control your portion sizes?

S more's Simplified

It's August already, this summer has flown by! It doesn't help that it was in the 60's until the second week of June. I know a lot of people are complaining about the heat, but I love it! I am a summer girl and August makes me sad, it means summer is almost gone. Who doesn't love the grand summer tradition of S more's? We try to make some every chance we get. Saturday night we had a summer night of fun. Swimming, a BBQ, S more's, and an outdoor movie, it was grand. When I married my husband I learned a new way to make S more's. It is fun and a lot easier for the kids. I still love traditional S more's, but I have really taken a liking to the simplified version.

We started up the coals and waited for them to get just right...

Gathered the S more's supplies, yes you saw it right those are fudge striped cookies....
These babies are the way to simplify your S more's. The cookies act like the gram cracker and the chocolate is already there. Easier for the kids to manage, they don't have to worry about holding the chocolate on the cracker.

Once your mallows are perfect....
You slap them in between 2 cookies and you are good to go! Delicious!
What do you think? Have you ever tried S more's this way?

DIY Summer Movie Night

I.LOVE.SUMMER. I love the heat, the outdoors, and all of the fun! Friday was the epitome of a great summer day. Swimming in the afternoon, dippy dogs for dinner, and an outdoor movie, it was too fun. My in laws own the lot next to them and have a sport court with a chain link fence. I had an idea that this would be perfect for an outdoor movie, but didn't know how to make it work, I didn't own a projector, and they are expensive. Luckily I married an amazing man, who is frugal, and with our powers combined, we made an amazing, inexpensive outdoor movie night.

This is possible for anyone, even if you don't have an empty lot, you could do it in your backyard or the side of your house. First chore is to find a projector. Since my husband is a student, he spends a considerable amount of time on campus, and has become quite familiar with what campus has to offer. One of the hidden gems on the campus of several Universities is their surplus and salvage. They sell all their "old" supplies at a huge discount since they initially bought it tax exempt. The real trick is patience, at our local University once the products have been on sale for 2 months, they go on DEEP discount. We got a fully functional Dell projector only 5% of its bulb used for SIXTY DOLLARS!!! It is a $1600 projector, you can't find a better deal than that! So the big task at hand was done. Most projectors hook up to a laptop, we used our Xbox, it worked great.

You will need a few extension cords for all of your plugs, my in laws have a bunch they use at Christmas time, with multiple outlets that were perfect. You will also need speakers, but just use whatever you have available. We have a surround sound system that we just packed up and took over, the quality was amazing.

The next task it the screen, originally we were going to buy this cheap sheet from IKEA, but my mother in law happened to have a bolt of white fabric, score! We sewed two pieces together to make our screen. To make the screen easy to set up, we sewed little strips on each corner and hooked it to carabiners.

The carabiners attached to the chain link fence and we were ready to go!
Here is the set up, the projector, Xbox, and speakers.
Since we had power outside I brought out the popcorn pumper for added fun!

We rented Rango from Redbox, here is my attempt at a picture with the movie going, not so great.
Everyone had a great time, don't forget bug spray!

We have had movie night twice already and plan on having a few more before summer is through!

Dippy Dogs

Do you believe it, between all of the fun things we have been doing, I finally managed to get a post up! Woo hoo! Last month when I visited my parents in Southern Utah my Mom gave me this....

As my parents get older my Mom is cooking less and isn't needing all of her kitchen appliances anymore. I received the fryer and her popcorn popper, both of which I was super stoked about. I have to be careful, fried food isn't the healthiest, but I have some theories regarding it. First- I try to have good eating habits 90% of the time, the last 10% is reserved for fun, fatty, unhealthy food, because you can't miss out on life. Second- If you're going to have fried food, make it yourself. You know what is going into it, and no matter what it tends to be slightly healthier.

The reason my Mom actually gave me her fryer was because we were talking about must have summer treats. I was talking about feeling guilty for buying Otter Pops, and my Mom told me what I mentioned above. She was right, what is summer without Otter Pops, snow cones, and corn dogs. I was aching for a good home made corn dog, I am sorry, but the ones you buy in the freezer, YUCK! I am talking the good corn dogs, the kind you get on the pier in Santa Cruz, made fresh juicy corn dogs. Growing up, my Mom made everything from scratch, and corn dogs were no exception. Naturally, she had the recipe for me, we made them for dinner last night, and my husband loved them. He loved them so much he even talked about them on Facebook!

Dippy Dogs

1 1/2 Cup pancake flour.

(My Mom doesn't buy special flours, so here is how to make pancake flour: 1 1/4 C flour, 2 TBSP sugar, 1 TBSP baking powder, and 1/2 TSP salt. If you are using this instead of pancake flour, just use this formula instead of the 1 1/2 C, does that make sense? Use this mixture in ADDITION to the rest of the ingredients in this recipe.)

1 TSP sugar

1 1/2 Cup milk (I would actually recommend probably 1 1/4 Cup, I haven't tried it yet, but my batter was a little thin, I would like it thicker.)

2/3 Cup corn meal

1 TSP salt

Around 15 wieners

Mix ingredients until you have a smooth batter. The secret of making the batter stick to the wieners is to heat the wieners in hot water then remove from water and dry thoroughly with a cloth. Insert sticks into wieners, dip in batter, and fry in hot, deep fat. (I used Canola Oil, it worked perfectly.)

If you are going to make your own corn dogs, go all out, get the good stuff, none of the mystery meat. Get the 100% all beef franks. We LOVE the Hebrew National.

I used my kitchen aid mixer to mix the batter, worked like a charm.

I didn't realize until we started that we didn't have much oil. To solve that problem, I cut the franks in half, so they were mini dippy dogs.
I brought water to a boil and threw them in, sticks and all, for about 1 to 2 minutes. I dried them thoroughly with a dish towel.
Soaked them in the batter, nice and thick.

I placed them in the fryer using silicone tongs. Make sure you have silicone so they don't melt. Mine are these from IKEA. I set the oil on the 350 degree setting. It was perfect. They sat in there for about 3-4 minutes, just until they were golden brown. I would assume you could try this in a saucepan with oil, if anyone attempts it, please let me know how it goes!

Here are the finished dogs, they were sooooo good. I served them with fry sauce, I also like them with ketchup or mustard.
Nothing says summer like a good corn dog! What do you think!?!

The BEST Banana Bread

In the summertime I generally don't do much baking. It is too hot to crank up the oven and have more heat in the house. There are rare exceptions though, like when you have a few ripe bananas, and you are going out of town for the weekend. That is where my favorite banana bread recipe comes in. I got this recipe from my friend Janey, I knew I would love it when I read that it has sour cream in it. Sour cream is one of my favorite condiments, dressings, mixed with salsa, oh how I love it! I think it is what makes the bread so moist.

Banana Bread

1 & 2/3 Cup all purpose flour

1 TSP baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 Cup plus 2 TBSP sugar

2 eggs

1/3 Cup oil

3 & 1/2 bananas, very ripe, mashed

2 TBSP creme fraiche or sour cream

1 TSP vanilla extract

Set the oven to 350, line the bottom of a loaf pan with parchment paper. Sift together the flour, soda, cinnamon, and salt; set aside. Beat the sugar and the eggs together with a whisk until light and fluffy, about 10 minutes. (I cheat and let my kitchen aid mixer do the work.) Drizzle in the oil. Add bananas, cream, and vanilla. Fold in the dry ingredients and add desired nuts. (This is optional, my husband doesn't like nuts, so I skip it.) Pour into lined loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. (It usually takes me an hour.)

Enjoy!

A few of my favorite things....

I have totally been slacking with blogging lately. I have been spending lots of time at swimming lessons and haven't done the other things on my to do. I had great intentions of sharing some camping tips/ recipes with you today, then I spent Saturday afternoon in the ER when my baby broke his nose. :( One of my worst days ever!! So, instead you get a few of my favorite things, summer edition.

After our wardrobe makeover, our large dresser was moved into my son's room. That meant I have LOTS more changing space and could fit more than just the wipes on top of the dresser. I still organized the top drawers this way, but I am able to keep a few extra things on top of the dresser. To keep it cute and convenient I picked up this cute little tray from IKEA for $3.99. I put the diaper rash cream, lotion, nasal spray, and a few other small items on it and I love it!

Before I share these next few things, I think I need to have a bit of a preface. Yes, I am somewhat of a hippie. You may already know that by my cleaning solutions and nutrition. There is a reason behind my madness. When my sister, mother of 4, was 34 years old, she was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. She battled cancer for 21 months, then passed away, leaving a husband and 4 little ones behind. After she died my Mother (as any Mother would I think), racked her brain to think if something she had done, worn, eaten while pregnant/nursing, could have possibly given my sister cancer. I don't believe anything my Mother did caused my sister's cancer, but ever since our family has been a bit more cautious of what we put in/on our bodies. I don't mean to bum anyone out with that story, I just wanted to share with you why I make the choices I do.

So, on a happier note, for the summer sun, we have been using our Jason's Natural Cosmetics Earth's Best Organic sunscreen. WHOA, was that a mouthful! It is free from chemicals and is extra mild for my son's tender skin. You may have heard lately there is a lot of debate going on with the unregulated chemicals that are put in sunscreen, so this is a good choice for me. It is pretty pricey though, I think around $12 a bottle, but there are certain things I am willing to spend money on and this is one. I guess technically I didn't spend any money, we traded in textbooks to Amazon and used our credit to buy the sunscreen.
Next up for summer fun, you have to keep the pesky bugs away! West Nile can be scary stuff, so we choose Burt's Bee's Herbal Insect Repellent. It is a mixture of bug fighting oils and is DEET free. We had it last year and have used it a couple times this year and we haven't had any problems with bug bites. It is again on the pricey side, $8, I bought it last year at Whole Foods. We can save money on inexpensive crafts and spend money on the good stuff like this.
These are a few of my favorite Summer time things, what are yours?

Healthy Homemade Popsicles

Yesterday it FINALLY felt like Summer, pretty much we just skipped Spring all together and went straight to Summer. It was 87 degrees, it hasn't been 87 degrees, since October 3, 2010, yeah people that is 8 months. Usually in the Spring we get some nice 70 degree days, not this year, lots of rain, and the temperature pretty much hung out in the 60's. WHEW, enough of that rant, the real reason I am telling you all of this is because Summer time brings a whole new batch of fun recipes! I have been wanting to try this one for awhile, the 87 degree day finally made me get around to it! I picked up some Popsicle molds from IKEA for $1.49, they go fast at my store, I was only able to get one set, I will have to scope them out early next year to get another set.

I found this yummy recipe in Wholesome Meals for Babies and Toddlers, it said it serves 4, but I am not sure how they are calculating that. It made about 12 Popsicles.

Strawberry Yogurt Pops

2 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced

generous 1 1/4 cups thick plain yogurt

3 TBSP runny honey

a few drops of vanilla extract

Put all ingredients in the blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Pour the mixture into ice pop molds and freeze until solid.

This recipe is super simple, here are my notes. First, since it is a little early on strawberry season, mine were a tiny bit tart, we like sour stuff around my house, so we were fine with it, but if you want them a little sweeter, you may want to wait until further into the season. Next, because we like things more on the sour side, I chose no sugar added plain Greek yogurt. I try to use Greek in any recipe that calls for yogurt because it is so much healthier. It is tart though, so to get members of my family to eat it plain I have to mix in fruit or grams. Lastly, I used local honey. Local honey is supposed to help combat allergies, and this house is full of allergies. I don't think you can get more local than my honey, it is from my sister in law's bees. I froze them over night, so I may or may not have had one this morning for breakfast, but they are healthy, so I don't feel so bad. :) If you have a hard time getting them out of the molds, just run them under cold water for about 5 seconds, they came right out.

In the recipes' notes it says you can use any fresh fruit you have in season. I am excited to try lots, blackberries, peaches, raspberries, I can't wait for the Farmer's Market to start on Saturday!! If you don't have molds, you can also just whip this up as a smoothie, it is quite runny though, so in that case, you may want to add more yogurt.

Do you have any fabulous Summer recipes? Please share!

What I'm working on Wednesday... ready for summer reading?

I am a stickler for Summer Reading. I insist that my two kids that can read ("the Bigs")read for at least 30 minutes every morning...even in the Summer! I cuddle with the two that can't read ("the babies")and I read a couple of their favorites to them. My "bigs" are getting to the age that they put up a bit of a fight. I stick to my guns, and they are generally happy once they "get into" their books. In an effort to stay ahead of the game, I've been doing a little research about Summer Reading.


Hit the Library...


Our local library has a great Summer Reading program. The kids are always eager to get to the library, as soon as school is out, and get started on the program. It starts early for us, May 26th and continues through July 30th.


Check out bookstores...

Sometimes my kids can't find a book they want at the library. Let's face it, we aren't the only Arizonans using books as an excuse to stay out of the HEAT. When that happens, we head to Half Price Books. They have great deals on books and other media.


Online fun too...

There are lots of "reading reward" programs out there too. Barnes and Noble has a program that allows kids to log the number of books that they read to earn free books. Scholastic also offers a "Summer Challenge" for kids to log the minutes they read to win prizes.

Lastly, I think any crafts that we do that relate to reading help to encourage my kids to read more. Here are a few reading crafts that we will be doing this summer...

A story sack.

What is a story sack? It's simply a tote bag that contains a book, and crafts or games related to that specific book. You could use costumes, treats, puppets, and paints. The possibilities are endless.


An elephant parade garland, courtesy of the long thread.com

This garland is to celebrate Elmer by David McKee. This book is a favorite in our house, and will be read numerous times this summer.


Munch, munch, munch...


I LOVE these page corner bookmarks. What kid wouldn't be excited to open the pages of his book to find a monster munching on it? These cuties are courtesy of I Could Make That. Click on the link above for a full tutorial.

What are your ideas/plans for keeping the kiddos reading this summer?

Parfait Partay!

With Labor Day marking that the last days of summer are upon us here is a quick, easy snack to use some of that fresh fruit from the Farmer's Market (or your own backyard if you're that lucky!). My mom used to make these when I was a kid, we loved having "parfait parties" with lots of different fruits: strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, etc. All you do is crush up 2 gram crackers in a bag with a rolling pin, teddy grams also make a quick and easy alternative, use 1 carton of yogurt that coordinates with your berries, we used the light white chocolate/strawberry here, and then do your layer of fruit. My husband had to add a little chocolate to his, sprinkles are fun to add if you have kids.

The fruit and yogurt parfaits are a low calorie alternative, (they are around 200 calories) to our Sunday Sundaes (a lot more than 200 calories), but also a fun way to use some of your berries.
Happy Labor Day! Enjoy the last summer holiday, and don't forget to enter the giveaway which ends Friday 9/10 at 9am MST.

What Do You Do in the Summertime?

About this time every year we begin the bottling.

This week is Stewed Tomatoes and Peaches and Raspberry/Peach Jam and Blackberry/Peach Jam.

We always plant lots of tomato plants so that we can bottle stewed tomatoes and homemade salsa. The stewed tomatoes are easy. Here's a link to the Ball Preserving Website if you want to give it a try : http://www.freshpreserving.com/pages/all_recipes/215.php?catID=Home-Canning&pageNum=1