Smoothies

You can’t mess up a smoothie. You can’t. It’s a fact. So much so that I let my son choose many of the ingredients AND how much to put in. All you need is vanilla yogurt, a little sugar, a few ice cubes and some fruit. While I place a few dollops of yogurt in the blender I let Seth pick out three frozen fruits. He’s allowed one scoop of sugar with a tablespoon and however many ice cubes and pieces of fruit he wants. Granted I did once have to convince him that frozen corn doesn’t work well in a smoothie. Which I suppose goes against my first statement, but you knew I was exaggerating. Here’s a couple more tips:

1. If your doing this with a child, have everything ready prior to inviting the kiddo to join you. I turned around to get a spoon and when I turned back Seth had his finger in the yogurt container. I told him I would take the smoothie away if he stuck his finger in there again. The next time I turned around to grab something he stuck his tongue in there.
2. When fruit such as berries, bananas and peaches are starting to go bad freeze them for smoothies later. Clean and chop them the size you would want for the blender. If you have more than a couple consider freezing them in a single layer prior to bagging to avoid them freezing to each other. Something like a banana could simply be peeled, broken in half and frozen separately. Then you could toss one half in your next smoothie.
3. If you have a side by side or bottom freezer keep all the containers of fruit in one easily accessible spot for the budding chef to choose from.

Oops! Forgot to take a picture before we drank it all. Boy was that yummy!

Green coffee cake!?!?!

You bet! Your color is not off on your computer screen and I didn’t totally botch this photo. Seth’s into coloring his food these days and he wanted to make coffee cake with his papa. I don’t know why, but he requested to color the batter green. Maybe it had something to do with the color mixing experiments we’ve been doing lately. Maybe he just saw the food coloring and a light bulb went off. Who knows?

After his father had him put me on the spot for granting permission, they set to work with just a few drops of food coloring. They showed remarkable restraint and created a lovely light tinged batter. It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be. There were no ill effects to the final product and Seth just beamed with pride. Could this be our St Patrick’s Day breakfast? What will be next? Muffins? Loaves of bread?

Do you ever use food coloring on food other than frosting? If so, leave a comment on what you like to color.

Pumpkin Pie II

Who says you have to do it from scratch? Learning to bake for adults or children can be taken in baby steps. My son and I have decided to learn and I mean really learn how to make pumpkin pie. We’ve decided to take it in levels:

1. Purchased pie
2. Frozen crust, canned pie filling (not puree) & spray whipped cream
3. Frozen crust, canned pumpkin puree & cool whip
4. Refrigerated rolled pie crust, canned puree & true whipped cream
5. Crust from scratch, canned puree & spiced true whipped cream
6. Crust from scratch, fresh pumpkin & spiced true whipped cream

I’m starting these entries with pie #2 as no one needs to read about a purchased pie. The taste was pretty good and we barely had to do a thing. We just followed the recipe on the Libby’s can. Seth enjoyed shaking the can of condensed milk. I opened the cans & cracked the eggs so Seth could pour them all together. He gave it a stir and I convinced him to let me have a go “for good measure”. We popped it in the oven and the waiting began. I quickly realized our timing was off. I hadn’t read the bottom line stating it would need to cool on a wire rack for 3 hours after it comes out! This would be way after bed time and Seth was none too happy. Next time we’ll bake in the morning or afternoon to avoid this problem. The following day we set to work with the whipped cream. Seth really wanted a Santa face on the pie so we practiced on a plate. While that was a heck of a lot of fun he finally settled on a heart for Valentine’s Day.

Will we learn to make the perfect pumpkin pie by next Thanksgiving? Stay tuned for another exciting Pumpkin Pie installment soon!