Owen's Cherry Daiquiris

So, we didn't get a picture of this, but this is a fun smoothie to make together with kids :).  Owen loves the strawberry daiquiris in the freezer section, the Bacardi mixers, and we add Sprite to them so the kids can have virgin drinks.  Owen wanted to try to reproduce this using cherries, and it turned out really well.  We all gave this a 9, we felt like it needed more grenadine.  Here's what to do:

1 lb frozen, pitted sweet cherries
Juice of 2 limes
1/2 c sugar (more or less)
1/4 c grenadine
ice

Blend together and serve.

Owen's Hot Vanilla

My Owen doesn't like strong flavors, and he doesn't really like chocolate all that much, so he wanted to make hot vanilla.  Luckily, although it is summer, the monsoons have started here, so the weather is nice, and on a day like this one when we have rain, it actually gets cool, so this hot vanilla was a real treat.  This was an easy recipe, and a nice change from hot chocolate.  We made it a little sweet for Aaron and me, but the boys thought it  was great.  Aaron says it has a white chocolatey flavor, and I agree, but mostly it is just vanilla, which is just what Owen wanted.  Owen gave it a perfect 10, Aaron and I gave this a 9, and Noah gave it an 8.  Here's the super simple recipe and it made four servings, with each serving being 205 calories.

3 c milk (we used 1%)
5 T sugar (use more or less depending on your desired sweetness)
1/4 c marshmallow fluff
1 T vanilla

1/2 c whipped cream
1 T sugar
1 t vanilla

Heat the milk, sugar and vanilla together in a saucepan, then when warm, add in the marshmallow fluff and stir until the fluff has dissolved in the milk.   Pour into cups and top with the whipped cream.

Whip the cream with the sugar and vanilla until stiff peaks form.  Top the vanilla milk.

Braciole, Frozen Hot Chocolate, Snickerdoodle Truffles and Creme Brulee

We had lots of fun new food today, and we'll start with dinner. We had braciole from Anne Burrell, and this was a delicious meal.  I cut the recipe in half, except for the sauce, and we served it with pasta.  I cooked it in the crockpot, and so I'm not sure if that's why there wasn't quite enough flavor, or if it was the recipe, but I felt like the filling didn't have enough flavor.  We all gave this an 8, and the calories for one roll with lots of sauce are 451.  The sauce in this picture looks yellow/green and oily, but it was really yummy and not greasy.  Oh well.

Next we had the frozen hot chocolate we've planned on having a few days. This was a disappointment. It was too icy and not chocolatey enough. I gave it a 3, Aaron gave it a 5, Noah gave it an 8, and Owen gave it a 6.  I think we'll just have some cold chocolate milk next time and save the dirty dishes and work.  The calories were 167 for 1/4 of the recipe using skim milk.  Noah enjoyed it the most, as you can see from this cute picture :).

For dessert we had snickerdoodle creme brulee and it was divine.  Aaron only gave it a 6 because he said it was too rich, but man the rest of us really liked it.  Noah and I gave it a 9, and Owen gave it an 8.  The first picture is of the snickerdoodle cookie dough truffles, which you need for the creme brulee.  Owen and I gave them a 9, and Noah gave them a perfect 10.  The calories for 1 truffle, I made 28 of them, were 134/truffle.  The calories for the creme brulee, I made 8 of them with 1 truffle in the bottom of each dish, were 344/brulee.  Yum! 

Hope everyone has a great weekend, we're having a bread pudding tomorrow.

Fake Orange Julius and Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread

Tonight we had Pumpkin & Cheese Spice Bread with eggs for dinner, some of the left over fruit pizza, and orange julius.  Fast Sundays are great, because we don't have to worry so much about our calories :).  Another reason to love fasting, right?  The recipe for Orange Julius is almost not a recipe it's so easy, but the boys loved it.

Fake Orange Julius 6 servings, 177/serving

6 c orange juice, divided 720

1 envelope dry Dream Whip 160

1 package (2 c) vanilla pudding mix 180

Pour 3 c of orange juice into blender, then add in dream whip and vanilla pudding.  Blend on low for 1 minute then turn to medium for another minute.  Pour into serving container, add in remainder of orange juice and serve over ice.

I found this recipe in a book by Joanne Fluke. I added some ice to the blender, and just blended everything up then served it over ice, and like I said, the boys just thought it was the best thing ever.  They gave it 10's, but Aaron didn't like it as well so it only scored a 9 over all.  The bread we gave an 8, and we really enjoyed it as well.  166 calories for a 1 inch slice.  I put the bread into 2 regular pans, so the loaves are shorter.
Tomorrow we're trying a pork chop recipe and potato skins.

Snickerdoodle Donuts, Crockpot Mexican Pulled Pork, Pioneer Woman's Watermelon Granita

Breakfast was found http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/breads/snickerdoodle-donuts/
and they were the best baked donuts we've ever had. So good and easy. 231 calories/donut, and I had to tweak the recipe a bit to make only 6 donuts, so if you made the full recipe the calories would be less.  We give the donuts an 8, and that's only because Aaron scored them less because they don't taste like Krispy Kremes :)

 

http://www.365daysofcrockpot.com/2012/03/slow-cooker-mexican-pulled-pork.html is the recipe for dinner, but I used canned creamed corn, Rotel (10 oz) tomatoes, and Kidney beans rather than black beans.  I also added cumin to the spices, and kept some of the onions with the pork.  The tacos we made were delicious, the pork was a little sweet and spicy, and we topped it with avocado, homemade salsa, and cheese.  The taco meat we split into 16 servings, so per serving it was 122 calories and we gave it a 9.  So delicious!

We also tried the Pioneer Woman's Watermelon Granita from her new cookbook, and I liked the flavor and the texture, but Aaron thought it was too cold to eat like ice cream, so he added pop to his and drank it.  He gave it a 4, and I give it a 6.  I think we'll stick to ice cream :)  Tomorrow we're trying Jack crusted Pork with a spinach salad.