My kids are getting tired of this question. I always ask this question when they say they’re hungry.
Yesterday, after I asked, I listed all the fresh fruit currently in the house and when I got to banana, PinkGirl asked if she could have a little chocolate syrup to dip it in. Sure. A couple of spoonfuls of chocolate to help the fruit go down without any grief? Sure.
AND PinkGirl fixed her own snack all by herself. A few years ago I bought this little gadget.
Perfectly uniform size slices without a knife, in just a few seconds! And it’s dishwasher safe. I keep it stored down low enough for her to get it anytime she wants.
(There are other designs for banana slicers, but I like this one because the wires go all the way through the banana into the grooves underneath, and I can use it for other things like mushrooms, boiled eggs and strawberries. – Friendly advice – don’t use this for slicing strawberries.)
UPDATE 1/22/09: These have been discontinued, but I’ve had some luck finding them. Check out my follow-up post “Get Your Banana Slicer HERE“
Kristin over at We are THAT Family is is hosting a themed edition of Works for Me Wednesday this week! Here are some of my favorite summer recipes! Click on the links for the original post and the ingredients/recipe.
We’re trying to work out a week at Daytona Beach Ocean Walk Resort again in the next few weeks. Last summer, we stayed there for 5 nights. SO much fun! I posted photos and a kind of review last year. We loved the fact that everything we wanted to do was within walking distance. We parked the van in the garage when we got there and didn’t get back into it until the day we checked out. The beach, two pools with a lazy river, entertainment complex with movies, restaurants, shops and across the street a water park, arcade, laser tag, go carts, mini-golf and the BEST? A SPA at the hotel that accepted the Spa Finder gift certificate I won at a Christmas party, so I even got a massage! GREAT vacation. Bought it on eBay. Seriously. GREAT deal.
I’m a Florida girl. I went to the beach on Saturdays, some when I was in high school, more when I was in college. I remember I parked my car on the beach at New Smyrna once. (It was allowed back then.) Hung out with friends all day. Then the tide came in. Not good. The tires did not budge. Not good. No cell phones back then. Just lots of freaking out about how much trouble I was going to get in and how I was going to get the car home with an engine full of salt water. Thankfully, lots of tanned, good looking guys, drippin in machismo, surrounded my Mustang and pretty much lifted it out of the sand and back a few feet before it was completely water logged or dragged out to sea and turned into an artificial reef. What? I was 16. I thought it could happen.
So I’ve been to the ocean a few times. Mostly the east coast of Florida. Daytona Beach, Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, Jetty Park, New Smyrna . . . I love the beach. Kinda. Here’s a few things I’ve learned about myself:
I DON’T like swimming in the ocean. I’ve gone in far enough to STAND and catch a wave with a boogie board or a raft, but actually SWIM in the ocean? No. Riptides. Fish touching my legs. The movie Jaws. eek.
I DO like walking, basking, sleeping and reading on the beach. I know I’m not supposed to sleep and bask – skin cancer – I know. I don’t really do it anymore. We all lather up SPF50+ now. But the days of SPF2 Coppertone Suntan OIL? I can still smell it. The deep brown skin and bleached blond hair from a bottle of Sun In spray? Good times. Good times.
I DO like sitting on the beach, building sand castles and sand . . . stuff. Digging trenches. Burying my feet and legs. Digging up sand crabs for bait. Sand fills up in your bathing suit bottom and you have to trudge out to the ocean at least waist deep and do a little dance, hopping nobody has goggles and can hold their breath for a long time.
I DON’T like going to the beach for the DAY. The 60 to 90 minute, sand in my pants, wet bathing suit, sticky skin drive home is miserable. HATE that.
I LOVE going to the beach when we stay overnight. Spending the entire day outside in the sun and sand and getting to take a shower IMMEDIATELY after. Then going out for a bucket of Cajun shrimp and ICE cold beer at Bubba Gumps. Then waking up the next and doing it all over, but with different sea food at the end of the day? Like maybe blackened mahi mahi? Oh, now why did I go there? I’m ready for vacation now.
I LOVE sitting out on the balcony of a hotel at night, listening to the surf and (hopefully, if the moon is right) watching the waves.
I DO like walking on the beach at sunrise and sunset. Breathtaking.
I DO like riding out the channel at Cape Canaveral in a boat EARLY in the morning. You can actually FEEL the tension sliding off your back behind you as you get farther away from land.
I especially like standing on the top deck of a Disney Cruise Ship as it makes its way down the channel.
I DON’T like walking on the beach at night. The scurrying little sand crabs freak me out. If I walk at night, I want a flash light. A BIG one.
oh. And my final DON’T like? Shaving my legs the same day I’m going to the ocean. ow. ow. ow. ow. Shave the night before. Trust me.
Summer can be a little busy. We can find ourselves out and about. And hungry.
Yesterday, I had a Quarter Pounder with Cheese for lunch. No fries, and with a Diet Coke, but still. Today, I had my FAVORITE salad, a Grilled Southwest WITH the southwest dressing even. So yesterday? 510 calories and 26 grams of fat. Today? 420 calories and 15 grams of fat. Still not great. But better. Not better than eating at home. But better than the day before. And really, that’s all I’m going for. Â Better than the day before. Â Baby steps. Baby steps. (and I’m filling out the exercise log again)
At McDonalds . . .
A Quarter Pounder with Cheese from McDonalds has 510 calories and 26 grams of fat. (bah-donk-a-donk)
A Grilled Chicken Southwest Salad has 320 calories and 9 grams of fat.
The Southwest Dressing has 100 calories and 6 grams of fat. (bah-donk-a-donk)
The Low Fat Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing 40 calories and 3 grams of fat.
At Pollo Tropical . . .
The Caribbean Chicken Fajita Platter has 690 calories and 26 grams of fat. (bah-donk-a-donk)
The Chicken Regular TropiChop® w/Yellow Rice & Vegetables has 330 calories and 5 grams of fat.
At Del Taco . . .
The Chicken Cheddar Quesadilla has 570 calories and 29 grams of fat. (bah-donk-a-donk)
The plain ol’ Nachos have 370 calories and 21 grams of fat. (bah-donk-a-donk)
A Taco has 130 calories and 7 grams of fat.
The Grilled Chicken Taco Del Carbon has 150 calories and 5 grams of fat.
(and this one’s for the rest of the family)
The Crispy Fish Taco has 300 calories and 17 grams of fat. (bah-donk-a-donk)
(and this is for FirstHusband)
The Deluxe Taco Salad has 850 calories and . . . wait for it . . . 46 grams of fat. (bah-donk-a-donk)
At Subway . . .
A Six Inch Turkey Breast Sandwich has 290 calories and 4 grams of fat.
YO! Julie! Go to Subway! Eat Fresh.
And avoid bah-donk-a-donk butt. (I love this commercial!)
I used to make this garlic toast when I was a kid, using the oven broiler and I can fairly say I burned more than a few pieces of bread. Now we use the toaster oven. It’s VERY easy. Butter a piece of bread and sprinkle garlic salt to taste. Toast in the toaster oven (or place on the top rack of your oven and use the “broil” setting) Garlic toast in less than 5 minutes!
We use wheat bread and smart balance spread for a healthier bread, but this is especially good with slices of french bread too!
Growing up, my mom often made an Easter Bunny cake like this one for Easter. (page down for more photos)
Easy, not too crafty (thank goodness), I think I’m making one this year. Judging from the number of available photos on Google Images, I’m not the only one. Check it out:
Bake a cake, any cake, in two round cake pans. Mine will be chocolate. There is no reason for me to eat cake unless it is chocolate. Let it cool and then cut it like this:
On the serving plate (my mom always used a piece of cardboard covered in aluminum foil), CAREFULLY arrange it like this:
Then, frost and decorate! My mom always frosted it white and covered it with coconut shavings as a base. Dark chocolate cake with coconut – mmmm – just like a Mounds bar. But CAKE!
You may recognize the pink fingernails. I’ve posted videos from this lady before. She made chocolate Gobble Berries (turkeys) for Thanksgiving and spiders and ghosts for Halloween. Her level of patience is astounding.
Let me just state. My children will never eat bunnies such as these. This is way too close to crafting for me.
Besides, is it just me or do these bunnies look a little like rats? Their noses are way too pointy. Easter rats. No, that won’t catch on. Easter mice?
Busy, Busy, Busy. The only thing I like better than eating Cream Cheese Chicken is MAKING it. Soooooo easy! Dump everything in a crockpot and come back later. That’s what I’m doing today.
But earlier this week I needed something ready in 10 or 15 minutes start to finish. That’s where these come in:
We like these and they are fast, easy and fairly cheap. (We first got them BOGO.) They usually don’t have this many broccoli stems (from the Garlic Shrimp). I pulled them out and supplemented it with some frozen broccoli florets.
One bag is supposed to be a meal, but seriously. This kid can eat. So we cook two bags. Unfortunately, we didn’t have two of the same kind, so we just had shrimp and more shrimp. PinkGirl liked the Garlic Shrimp on the left. FavoriteSon preferred the Shrimp Scampi on the right. I added some more peas to the Shrimp Scampi on the right.
A track meet lasts for hours. HOURS. I suppose I understand. If FavoriteSon doesn’t rest between races, he tends to ralph. But what to feed a runner between races? Too much and again, ralph. Too little and they don’t perform as well. Then there’s getting him to eat something at all.
Here’s the scene: He runs a race (and wins, of course). I walk to the field with Gatorade or water. He waives me off and turns away. (Because it is NOT cool to talk to your mom at a middle school track meet.) His coach says, “Take the Gatorade, your mother knows what she’s doing.” (That’s RIGHT!)
After a few weeks of that nonsense, I explained to FavoriteSon: “When I walk out on that field and hand you a bottle of Gatorade, I’m invisible. Your friends don’t even see me. You know when they see me? When you waive me away and your coach calls you out in front of everyone.”
silence. thinking.
I continue, “Here’s what I’ll do – after a run, I’ll bring a small snack and drink to you on the field, hand it to you and walk away. No one will even notice me. Okay?
“ok.”
It worked out perfectly. After the first race, I walked out to the field, handed him half of a peeled navel orange and walked away. No eye contact necessary. Didn’t even interrupt his conversation. After his second race, I walked out with a banana and some Gatorade and he actually talked to me. I waited and took away the rest of the banana and the Gatorade bottle. I will not take that as a sign that it is now acceptable for me to interrupt him when he’s engaged in post-race conversation with his friends.
Last week, I packed us a dinner and brought an ice chest in an effort to stave off concession stand food. The big hit was the chicken salad. It takes about 5 minutes to make! The first version was canned chicken breast, drained, shredded and mixed with light mayo and white grapes, sliced in half. BIG hit! This week, I ran out of mayo and had to substitute spinach dip. LOVED it!
I don’t assemble the sandwiches before the meet because they tend to get soggy. I just bring the salad in a container (square, of course), some bread and a fork. I can assemble the sandwiches right there in the stands. Here’s my sandwich from today, using the leftover Chicken Grape Salad:
I mentioned before that my kids love boiled eggs, but I forgot to mention this little gadget I found at a rummage sale for 25 cents.
UPDATE: This post has been featured on another site under the title “15 Weird Kitchen And Cooking Appliances Are Pretty Much Useless.” Of course it’s useless. It’s a novelty item. It’s fun, not functional. I paid a quarter for it. And it’s not an appliance under any stretch of the imagination.
It’s a tiny little vice-like plastic egg cuber. Seriously. It turns boiled eggs into squares. You boil the egg, peel it while it is still warm, pop it in the square shaped compartment and screw down the lid. Refrigerate for a few minutes and you get this: (okay. I accidentally froze mine. That’s why the sides are so wrinkly.)
Then, you send it to school in a kid’s lunch box or slice it in half and serve on a plate of deviled eggs and when asked about it, you make comments like, “ouch. that had to hurt.” or “I don’t know. It just came that way.” Any other suggested responses would be MUCH appreciated.
If you pop the gadget into the freezer to chill it, you can speed up the process and cube more than one before the eggs cool off too much. The cube isn’t quite as square after the egg is cool. I hope I run across another one so I can make more than one at time.
