Before I put Summer of Funner to rest, there was one Love-to-Do List item that I just had to make. I’ve always wanted to make a marmalade to sigh for, most particularly, a Lemon Ginger Champagne Marmalade. I didn’t even really know if such a thing had ever existed before. I only knew that I wanted […]
Two years ago, we made Toby an amazing Chocolate Milk Piñata Cake for his birthday. And, since we didn’t tell him it was a Piñata cake, the surprise on his face, when he sliced it open, was priceless! This year, Toby upped the ante on us by requesting an Ice Cream Piñata Cake. SRSLY, WT*? The closest I came […]
It’s crazy summer snack time. In our attempts to DIY some Poprocks style candies [Will they ever really pop? We think, not!], we came up with something lovelier: Sour Pink Lemonade Frizzantes. Bea loves a sour candy. And these slightly fizzy candy shards absolutely fit the bill! I think I’m going to start carrying these pucker-ups […]
We’ve decided that Wednesdays are for “challenges” this summer. Last week’s challenge was to come up with a tasty sparkling beverage that had little or no sugar in the final product. Now, we’ve really been enjoying fermented beverages like Kombucha and Water Kefir. These are drinks made with sugar but whose sugar is largely “eaten,” […]
The kids and I are planning on about a dozen “mad tea parties” this summer. That should average out at 1 1/3 a week! Now, we wanted to come up with a cake that had “mad tea party” written all over it. So, after receiving the most amazing bottle of Elderflower Cordial from a friend of ours […]
Who wants the summer to end? Not us! Our final week of summer is dedicated to our annual Backyard Campout. Since we’re trying to make our campouts a bit healthier, we thought we’d tweak a favourite recipe from The Lunchbox Season to honour the seasonal peach. This Endless Summer Peach Almond Cake is Gluten Free […]
Banana week continues…The kids so love the super healthy Date Almond Smoothies we made over March BreACK! that we’ve been making them regularly ever since! As the weather has turned warmer, we’ve even started throwing a few cups of ice into the blender to make “Date Almond Frosties.” This summer, we decided to go the distance and […]
It’s Banana Week! And we’re going Bananas! Banana Splits! Banana Bread! Painting with Banana Peels….You name it! We’ve done it! One of our best culinary experiments this week has got to be these Easy Gorgeous Chocolate Covered Bananas!! Oh my goodness. I am NOT a frozen banana girl…but I like a cold summer treat. And these babies […]
For lunch during this last week of freedom, the kids wanted an outdoor barbecue. So, I finally got around to teaching them how to use the gas grill safely. I helped them light the grill, but then I moved back into the role of supervisor. Safety first, of course. They used silicon mitts and long-handled […]
Okay, I have to admit it, while it’s our FORTnight or Backyard Campout season, I haven’t been sleeping outside with the kids. I’m still wearing my cast at night, and so this makes camping particularly uncomfortable for me. So, to fill out my “half” of the bargain, I volunteered for “gourmet” breakfast duty! To kick […]
Clafoutis is one of my favourite brunch treats and tea-party desserts! Lately, I’ve been experimenting with cutting out the grain and lowering the amount of sugar in my go-to recipe. Seeing as it’s peach season [what’s better than a fresh freestone Ontario peach?], and I’ve never yet made a peach version, I thought I’d better try […]
Yesterday, we went on a beach walk. Since the kids were anxious to make “fossil cookies” this summer [it’s on our love-to-do list], I thought it might be a good idea for them to memorialize their walk by emptying their pockets of the trinkets they picked up along the way [and over the course of […]
This year, Toby wanted to have a Minecraft Creeper Cake for his birthday. Creeper, of course, is a pixelated character from the popular video game. Now, the notion that he wanted a basic, square shaped cake was great. But, since I only have one hand to work with this summer, I was nervous about what to […]
The kids just love the Roasted Marshmallow flavoured ice cream at our fave spot, Ed’s the Real Scoop, down at the beach. Since one of our goals, this summer, was to make gelato, we decided to try to make it in their favourite flavour. To that end, we tested and tampered with about 5 different […]
Last night’s Family Film Fest selection was M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable. The kids really enjoyed the comic book angle and the way that Bruce Willis’s character, David Dunn, comes to understand his physical capabilities as heroic qualities. They weren’t so keen, in the end, as to exactly how he came to these conclusions. Still, the kids’ dissatisfaction led to […]
One of our Summer Love-To-Do List projects was to”Invent a Popsicle.” Since one of Bea’s favorite drinks at the local Gerrard India Bazaar is the hot, pink Kashmiri Chai Tea, speckled with bits of pistachio and almonds, I thought I’d try to provide her with a frozen, summer version! In order to make a popsicle out of […]
There’s nothing like s’mores made with marshmallows roasted on the campfire or (carefully) over the bbq!! Today, we’re revising an old-favorite graham cracker recipe to use to create cut-out dino-grahams so that we can make Dino S’mores! Often, we make our own marshmallows, too. [See our Basic Marshmallow recipe!] However, today, we’re using store bought. To […]
The first man I saw… had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years more, he should be able to […]
