Wrap up the summer with a super-easy fruit popsicle - it is practically cheating!
It is so easy to just buy pre-made food at the grocery store, especially if you have a hectic house. Trust me, I know and have been guilty in the past (and no doubt future). I have been on a personal quest to feed my family fewer processed, pre-made items and an easy way to start is with kid snacks. But I don't want our family to just eat better, I want to include my kids in the process of making food ... even though it takes planning, prep and even more work. I am self-taught in the kitchen and part of teaching my kids how to cook means teaching myself.
You may think that this is an insanely easy recipe - it's meant to be! This is a fun recipe that will let you sit back and let your kids rule the kitchen. <gulp>. <fingers crossed>. It is also a concept that can be modified a thousand different ways depending on your taste and pantry.
- popsicle mold
- frozen strawberries whirled in the food processor spooned into the popsicle mold
flip & tumble brand reusable produce bags from Crate & Barrel
... if you eat fruits and vegetables!
Just a suggestion: say no to plastic bags at the grocery store and farmer's market. A lot of the cities in the Bay Area are banning plastic bags and I love it but the ban doesn't include produce bags. You can be ahead of the game.
I started using these particular produce bags a few years ago when my friend Christy Wolf challenged me to go waste-free. I'll be honest, I haven't moved very far into the waste-free lifestyle - although I am trying really hard to figure out how to make it work for our family! Totally another story. The reason that I am plugging these bags is because they really hold up. I also use the "24-7" bags by flip & tumble which are grocery bags that wrap up into themselves (I keep them in my purse). They aren't available at Crate & Barrel but can be ordered online.
You can buy the produce bags 5/$10.95 at Crate & Barrel or 5/$12 directly from flip & tumble. Or, if you are on a budget and sewing-savvy (which I am not, sewing-saavy) you can make your own produce bags. Click here. How to Make Reusable Produce Bags
If you want to learn more about a Bay Area family who is waste-free (and makes me feel guilty on a daily basis) click here. It is fascinating! Zero-Waste California Home
Pretty empty. But not desperate-empty. At least two more meals.
My family may think I am trying to starve them. If they do, they're kind enough not to comment.
In this corner Taylor: weighing in at ... never mind. In the other corner: The Refrigerator.
Sometimes I play a game of chicken against my refrigerator. It usually happens after we return home from vacation and I am off-schedule. Chicken, as in: how low can the food level drop toward desperation before I actually break down and load the grocery cart? I know I need to start gearing up for competition when moans of, "there's nothing to eat" start radiating from the kitchen.
It's a fun game kids! Breakfast is nearly-mealy apples slathered in peanut butter with a mini marshmallow on top. Yum! Julian needs a bagged lunch for camp? Cheese Stick Quesadilla with a side of sliced bell pepper. Awesome!
I normally do the bulk of my shopping one day a week, hand written list in-hand, and if I forget something I just get it when I need it. Fresh basil. TP. Emergency pint of Ben & Jerry's for a friend. You get the gist. Playing chicken is like my families very own food competition show. We love those shows! I'm the home cook with a heart of gold competing with a limited pantry, my lucky kids are the panel judges and my prize is a trip to the store to fill my refrigerator. I always come out the winner. Or maybe the panel just doesn't want to buy and make the food themselves.
They'll survive.
Cheese Stick Quesadilla when you run out of cheese during the competition.
I don't make my bed. Scratch that. I didn't make my bed, until recently.
When I was growing up my mom would remember rather sporadically that we were "supposed" to make our beds. I was usually in the middle of something extremely pressing like hovering over my boom box trying to tape a song from the radio while simultaneously chatting with a friend on the phone, in the bathroom (for privacy), while my brother Paul pulled on the phone cord stretching along the wall from the kitchen to annoy me. Pressing stuff! Through the door I would hear my mom ranting and raving about the state of everyone's duvet and I would begrudgingly respond with a sigh, an eye roll (safely behind the bathroom door), rush to my room and quickly flatten the sheets and straighten pillows. Trust me, there was never any military precision on these missions.
As a parent I have never enforced bed making. It is an example of a task on my ever expanding list of Taylor-doesn't-want-to-sweat-the-small-stuff-because-if-she-does-she-will-go-crazy-and-take-everyone-with-her. Evan still uses toddler-sized blankets and they blend well with the pile of stuffed animals and pillow pets. Making the bed would disrupt the animals. Why disrupt animals? Julian has a loft bed and making the bed is a true lesson in futility, not to mention, as soon as I start to climb the stairs to take a look I am afraid they're going to split in half below me. My teenage son Jordan is the only one who makes his bed and I say all the power to him!
Strangely, after all of these years I, me, myself finally started making my bed. Honestly, for three reasons.
If the bed is made I won't lay down for a rest during the day and mess it up. Of course, this only works if you are the type of person who likes to get comfy under the covers. I am that person. Not to mention you can still rest - but I choose not to.
I genuinely feel like I have accomplished something on my to-do list as soon as I wake up. No matter who you are, your list is long - and when the list is long, you need as many <checks> as you can get.
There is one thing organized in my house at all times! Woot!
Observation: Try it on for size, I guarantee it will help to kick-start your mood on a daily basis. If not, at least you tried!
On our way to Las Vegas for Summer Roadtrip 2012 we decided to stop along Highway 58 in Tehachapi, California for a gas station break. Pump some gas, stretch the legs, use the facilities ... browse the candy aisle. It was a small, dilapidated Shell gas station situated across the street from a stretch of amazing train track that runs along Highway 58 and literally through the Tehachapi Mountains.
As Lewis and Evan watched the train, Julian and I headed back inside for some cold drinks and snacks. Go healthy or go candy? Before we left home I packed plenty of healthy snacks and we were on vacation, right? Julian, always the eclectic connoisseur opted for a glass bottle of Fanta and a huge pack of Mamba's to split with Evan. We paid for our items, readjusted the mound of stuffed animals, pillow pets and blankies in the back seat and were on our way.
Back on the highway while the kids divided their Mamba-booty Lewis and I marveled at a passing train (four engines pulling at least fifty cars), the varying sizes of electricity-producing windmills (too cool) and the high desert scenery (never-ending Joshua trees) until Julian and Evan started complaining about the taste of their strawberry Mamba. The complaints: it's too hard to chew and it tastes "funny".
Of course my natural response was, "let me taste one". Why? Do I really not trust the sugar palette of my candy-loving children?
I peeled the wrapper from a stiff rectangle of strawberry flavored Mamba and stuck the candy in my mouth. As I began to chew I told them, "It is pretty hard, maybe it's just a little old. Look and see if there is an expiration date". As we jockeyed the absurdity of expired candy the after-taste of the Mamba filled my mouth. It can only be described as sucking on a stick of chalk.
Expiration date 8/2010. Just shy of two years old. Bleh!
We laughed about how long the Mamba's must have been waiting there. Was all the candy that old? Before I knew it they were all eaten. Pause. Wait. What? <Gulp>. All of them?
I am pleased to report that no one got sick. Yay! But I don't know if there are any more Mamba's in my future.
Lesson learned: Simply telling your children the nasty, disgusting, chalky candy they are eating is expired will not cease their consumption of said candy. Or maybe it's just my kids.
I was recently caught eating Oreos. In the bathroom. Not while on the toilet. <sheesh>. And they weren't even Double Stuf, not even Double Stuf people.
It is safe to say that I have control issues when it comes to sweets, desserts and sugar in any form. I am fairly certain I can trace the anchor of my problem to my 14th birthday, circa 1990. In this year my mother became obsessed with eating natural. Nothing processed. Nothing good ... or maybe the good was sucked out during the baking, steaming, drying, boiling process. We shopped at a members-only food co-op in Sacramento, a strange market where everything was sold in bulk and was eerily healthy. Keep in mind in 1990 this era of shopping was the style of aging hippies, the Whole Foods generation where all the cool kids shop came later. I was a teenager and I wanted sugar. A lot of it.
For my birthday I was promised a chocolate cake. Rewind to the fact that my mother forget my 13th birthday, yes, forgot, so my 14th was a do-over. As dishes were washed and the cake was unveiled I was giddy. Chocolate, choc-o-late, chocolate! I sliced into the round, layered cake and sticky frosting slipped from the knife. I forked a significant piece and bit into it <pause> and stared wide-eyed. "What kind of cake is this?" I asked. My mother grinned and answered, "Carob. It's better than chocolate, and healthy. Don't you like it?". Crap. Trick question. Carob? I smiled weakly as I gulped the bite and casually looked toward the mound of cake waiting on my plate. Slowly, deliberately and with a focus I can only assume the greatest, most accomplished athletes in history can relate to, I finished every last drop of the cake. Let's just say, animals who eat bark would have hesitated to eat this cake.
After the Carob Incident of 1990 I knew my only recourse was to hide my sugar consumption. A shoe box in the closet held Hostess products (this idea was stolen from a scene in the movie Parenthood). M&M's were stashed between my mattress and bed frame. I began to hoard Andes mints like buried treasure and sticks of gum lined the inside of a note book on my book shelf. Forget about falling in love with boys, I only had eyes for Rocky Road candy bars. Candy became my dirty little secret. My dirty, tasty, gooey secret.
Fast forward to 2012. In the spring I decided to take a break from sugar. I finally began to admit that sugar may be a substantial contributing factor to my weight issues. So I ate one last bite of cookie at a potluck and vowed to make a change. I did so very well. So very well. For 3 months that is. Then it happened. At a restaurant I agreed to sample some cake. I started justifying desserts that were given to me as gifts. A taste of Evan's donut wouldn't be the end of the world. Plus I hadn't lost any weight, so maybe sugar wasn't the culprit after all. As I ventured down the cookie aisle at Safeway Oreos magically ended up in the basket. I told myself they were for Lewis because he loves them and then promptly hid them in the cupboard.
Checking to confirm that the kids were occupied I smuggled a sleeve of cookies into the bathroom. I leaned against the vanity and quietly opened the package. Eat them whole or apart? An Oreo question for the ages. As I took my first bite I heard a noise. I tossed a towel over the cookies as Evan walked in with an inquiry about LEGO's. I sent him on his way and it hit me like a ton of bricks. If you're hoarding cookies in the bathroom you probably have a problem. A tasty, sweet, cream-filled, yet serious problem, and you should probably just say No all together. Or, maybe just start enjoying carob.
Last summer while on Roadtrip 2011: Full-On Tourist View of So Cal, we spent a few days at Universal Studios Hollywood. The first stop on our trip was Santa Barbara so while my family enjoyed the pool I popped into Costco (great regional deals on most amusement parks) and bought 5-day annual passes to Universal Studios Hollywood. Fast forward to summer 2012, another trip to Santa Barbara (sans dad), the recent opening of a new ride and those long forgotten passes rapidly counting down to their expiration date. Why not trek down to L.A. for the day?
With my mother in-tow we hit the gates a little behind schedule, grrr, only 10 hours before the park closes! Map in hand, frozen bottles of water and Gatorade stuffed in a backpack, red vines easily accessible for quick energy, we devised the plan: The Simpsons Ride first (our favorite, 45 minute wait) Studio Tour (next door, classic, 55 minute wait), eat lunch next to Jurassic Park:The Ride (splashing and spraying water, peak 90 degree heat of the day, 45 minute wait), send Grandma and Evan to the playground while the older kids and I rushed through Revenge of the Mummy (a hassle because you have to check bags in electronic finger printed lockers, 25 minute wait), and then on to the mother lode ... the reason we were there ... Transformers: The Ride-3D. Expected wait time: 75 minutes.
75 minutes. 75 minutes with a 6-year old who was just fed a large Ben & Jerry's ice cream sundae with extra M&M's and 6 cherries on top by his Grandmother. Thanks a lot Grandma. 75 minutes in 90 degree heat. Hmmmm, a large Coke Zero with a lot of ice will be a nice distraction. 75 minutes during an app-free day (a great plan to get the kids off their phones, wait, this applies to me too?). 75 minutes surrounded by really loud and pushy foreign tourists. Oh yeah, let's do this!
While my mother complained for the tenth time that I should have sprung for the Front of the Line Passes ($100 more per person, not happening) and I repeated my mantra of, "It's good for kids to learn to wait", I stood back and actually observed my kids. They weren't unhappy. They weren't complaining. They were having fun. Waiting in line was part of their story, their experience, their memory. If they could enjoy it I could too.
We listened to the intro "training" video hosted by "Sonia Bradley" for the millionth time and it became a joke. Our inside joke. We jockeyed for better positions to see what was coming next while laying odds on how long it would actually take, would it really be 75 minutes? As we turned endless corners Jordan pulled out his phone and timed the gaps in the line, could we predict how long the ride would last? Evan vacillated between holding my hand, being held, climbing on the divider (climbing dividers is a amusement park tradition!) and checking out the displays with wide-eyed enthusiasm (hint: they let you press flashing buttons). We were all excited. As we were handed 3D glasses and ushered into the correct staging line I looked at my phone. Just shy of 2 hours and we were finally at our destination. As I pulled my harness into place I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Jordan and Julian were quickly programming the stopwatch function on their phones and stowing them safely in their pockets. I looked down at Evan and he gave me a thumbs up while adjusting his 3D glasses with the other hand. I turned forward and relaxed in my seat, I was ready. The ride lasted 4 minutes and 45 seconds. And yes, it was worth every single minute. Transformers: The Ride-3D, Universal Studios Hollywood
