favorite easy camping meal

We love roasting hot dogs when we go camping, and we usually bring traditional buns. But as I was searching for camping meal ideas before our trip, I came across this: Curly Dogs. They couldn't be easier. 

• Grab a hunk of your favorite roll/bread dough (I used thawed Rhodes rolls for simplicity)
• Roll it into a snake
• Secure one end to your favorite hot dog with a toothpick
• Wrap around in a spiral
• Secure other end with another toothpick
• Insert your favorite roasting stick
• Cook over a campfire

You can also bake them in the oven, if you don't have access to a campfire. 

The kids thought they were really fun and helped every step of the way. They gobbled them up, even though I forgot the ketchup. They're not fans of refrigerated pre-made dough, but they liked the Rhodes. Someday I'll make these at home with homemade dough.

 What's your favorite camping meal?

construction play

It's been three years since we first discovered the joy of using raisins, Goldfish crackers, cereal, cornmeal, salt, and other small edibles with construction vehicle toys. It started when he was a toddler, and we could combine play time and snack time (no, he doesn't snack on cornmeal and salt) for nearly an hour of peace and quiet fun. 

But he still loves it! And now, he can even get the supplies himself. Score.

classroom treats

My little dude had a birthday celebration at school this week. It's not actually his birthday, but he's a summer baby and no one in his class has a February birthday, so we opted to celebrate now instead of in June with the rest of the summer babies.

He did not want the traditional cupcakes, though. His first request was caramel apples. I knew that would never fly in a kindergarten class, so we talked over a few options and finally came up with this—individual cups of caramel dip and apple slices on sticks. It worked really well! Everyone was finished quickly, almost everyone loved it, and aside from a few sticky fingers, cleanup was a breeze. His teacher was pleasantly surprised!

I dipped the apple slices in pineapple juice to keep them from browning. It worked well.

And since I didn't get any good closeups at school, Sweetpea generously volunteered to pose for me after school with an extra caramel cup. It helped that she got to eat her prop. :)

prep bowls, repurposed

I received a set of lidded prep bowls as a Christmas gift. As soon as I took them out of the box, I knew they'd be the perfect size for taking snacks in the car. Then I tried them out in the kids' lunch boxes and guess what? They fit perfectly. I was so excited!

Sometimes it seems strange that I get so excited about lunch containers. But it's just storage, right? I get excited over home storage, and that's not strange.

So far I've used the containers to hold pretzel sticks, pickle slices, dry cereal, cheese chunks, and gummy Lifesavers. The kids have come to expect sandwich quarters and fruit in their half pint jars (see detail on the half pint jars here), but they never know what they'll get in the stainless steel prep bowls. It's a fun little surprise.

The kids are growing, and are needing more food for lunches. I'm looking into bigger containers, as long as they'll still fit in the lunch boxes or some sort of insulated bags that can hold the food containers and an ice pack. Right now I've got my eye on LunchBots. Have you used LunchBots? Do you like them?

270/366 roasted pecan butter

I'm trying to reignite my love of food photography. That is what got me started on this photography journey, after all. See my effort here? I scooped out the pear core all pretty like. I matched the coffee mug to the pear skin. But it would have been better if I'd added a napkin, subtracted a pear bruise, and waited 20 more minutes for the sun to come all the way up. Alas, there were lunches to be made and kids to take to school. Plus, you know, I was hungry. This was my breakfast sitting out in the cool fall morning air.

Anyway, what was my point? Oh, right. Pecan butter.

I've been experimenting with homemade nut butters after reading this post on Heather Eats Almond Butter. I've tried raw almond butter (takes for.ev.er and I'm afraid I'll break my food processor), raw peanut butter, raw cashew butter, and now roasted pecan butter. They've all been good, but the pecan butter is really flavorful.

Have you ever made raw almond butter? You put the almonds in the food processor, turn it on, scrape it down. Turn it back on, scrape it down. Repeat for 15-20 minutes. (It's supposed to go faster if you roast the almonds first. I was trying to be all raw and healthy and trendy, but I'm going to try roasting them next time, if for nothing else than to preserve my food processor.)

But these pecans? Holy nut oil, they processed fast. I turned on the food processor, walked away for maybe a minute, came back and it looked like this. Almost gloppy, but nicely spreadable. 

And sooooo tasty. Especially with a little cinnamon.

I used a scoop of the pecan butter yesterday in this coconut banana milkshake from Summer Harms's blog. Delicious! I also used light coconut milk (the kind in a can that you use for curries, not the dairy alternative type), so mine wasn't as thick as Summer's. The kids loved it—it was a great way to recharge between school and soccer practice. I added a couple shots of espresso in mine to make it a good Mommy recharge, too. 

I need to buy more coconut milk.

267/366 pink pearl

The kids and I made applesauce with our Pink Pearl apples today. Pink applesauce is such a novelty, I try to make it each year when the red flesh apples are harvested. We buy ours from Kiyokawa Orchards in Parkdale, Oregon.

I like my applesauce chunky, and just apples—no sugar or anything else added. How do you like yours?

256/366 banana vs apple oatmeal squares

Last week on the MakeHappy Facebook page, I shared a recipe my sister-in-law found on Gingerbread Bagels for Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Squares.* There was some discussion on whether the recipe could be made with applesauce instead of mashed banana, and I said I'd try both and report back.

I did, and yes, both fruits work equally. 

Both batches of oatmeal squares baked up exactly the same, except one has a sweet banana flavor and one has a tart apple flavor.  (I used unsweetened applesauce.)

I wasn't sure how much applesauce would equal the one ripe mashed banana called for in the recipe. I guessed 1/2 cup, and since that happened to be the measuring cup I had out already, I crammed the banana in it to double check. Perfect fit!

So if you're in the mood for peanut butter apple oatmeal squares, head to Gingerbread Bagels* for the recipe, and substitute 1/2 cup applesauce for the mashed banana. 

And after you pull them out of the oven, if you want nice, neat squares, wait until they're actually cool before you cut them. Impatient baked good fiends like myself tend to cut too early and get crumbly edges. (And lazy food stylists like myself end up with poor photos of said crumbly edges—see above.)

Oh, and hey! They're tasty! You should definitely try them. No flour, no oil or butter. (If you want to make them gluten free, be sure to use oats that are gluten free.) They mix and bake so fast, you can satisfy your craving for something warm and soft before it goes away. Not really a good thing, but these are relatively healthy so you don't have to feel too guilty. 

*Edited 13 November 2012: I went back to make these again today (with chocolate chips!), and the Gingerbread Bagels site was down. I found a copy of the recipe here.

213/366 circles

Circles. We're surrounded by them. But this week, while trying to find a subject for a “circle” photo prompt, I couldn't seem to find anything just right.

This next image does have circles, but that's not why I'm sharing it. The little dude didn't want the delicious honey basil dressing I made, but we didn't have any other dressing in the house. (He doesn't really go for lemon, balsamic, or olive oil like the grown ups do.) I asked him if he wanted his salad plain or if he wanted to find an alternative. He looked in the fridge and pulled out the ketchup.

To each his own, I suppose.

208/366 focaccia & basil aioli

Homemade herbed focaccia (recipe here and with roasted garlic here) with homemade basil pesto aioli. (By which I mean homemade pesto mixed with store bought mayonnaise, of course. I didn't make my own mayo.) Fried egg, sliced tomato from the garden. 

It was amazing. So delicious. Eat your veggies first and save the best for last delicious. We are making that again!

199/366 ikea

Did you know that kids eat free on Tuesdays? If we lived closer, this would be our outing every Tuesday during the summer.

185/366 summer fruit

I am so happy the summer fruit has finally arrived here. . . in-season ripeness and in-season prices! Last week was slim pickins, but today we brought home cantaloupe (39 cents a pound!), grapes ($1.59!), nectarines ($1.89, and ripe! And sweet!), plums, corn on the cob, and avocados. Yum.

We celebrated with rice-cake-face lunches. I supplied rice cakes with some sort of sticky medium (Sweetpea chose cream cheese, Mister chose peanut butter) and an array of fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, shredded cheese, raisins, etc. for decoration. The kids loved using white corn for teeth this time. :)

162/366 tea for three

This pattern is so not me. I am about as unfussy as a girl can get, and this pattern is most definitely fussy. I'm still not quite sure why I love it so, but I do. I've been drawn to it since I was a little girl, and I love that I can bring it out and play Tea Party whenever I want.

The kids asked for a tea party yesterday. I got out three teacups, three saucers, and the matching tea pot. Neither kid was brave enough to try tea (they usually don't like it), so I filled the tea pot with water. The kids doled out some mini pretzels, and we all sat down, with napkins in our laps, practicing manners and enjoying each others' company. We talked about silly sayings like, “Would you like a spot of tea?” and “One lump or two?” The kids decided they would try tea next time if they could put sugar in it. Little cheeky monkeys, they are.

159/366 school lunch containers

School is out for us next week, but for some odd reason, I'm choosing today to share our school lunch containers. It's so you can be ultra-prepared for next fall, right? Right. I'm just excited because I've finally figured out a good solution for us, because I've been searching for a very long time.

We used to use plastic reusable containers. I felt good that they were reusable, but I'd cringe every time I pulled that cloudy plastic from the dishwasher. I wanted something stainless steel or glass—but thick glass, for safety—and something that would fit in our recently purchased lunch bags with our old-but-still-perfectly-usable water bottles. Oh, and something that would hold half a sandwich and fruit/veggies separately, with a lid easy for kids to open and close. That was a tall order to fill.

The idea for using canning jars came to me almost a year ago. The wide mouth half pint jars were almost exactly the same size as the plastic containers we were using. But the two piece metal lids were both a pain to store and clean and unsafe for little fingers. So when I discovered these one-piece plastic screw on lids, I had what I needed to make the canning jars work.

I bought a few and we tested them out. They were the right size for us, and fit all my criteria. They also had a bonus point—they'd work in the classroom microwaves so I could send leftovers for variety. (The kids have been instructed that the lids do not go in the microwave!) 

I wasn't too worried about them breaking, because the glass is sturdy and thick. But two in the same lunch bag would clink together on the walk to school, and I worried that the repeated agitation would be rough on the glass. So I looked through the entire kitchen for ideas. I measured the containers and found they were the same size as the wells in my jumbo muffin tin. Off to Amazon I went in search of jumbo silicone muffin cups. I found them right away, and as soon as they arrived, I tested them out. They worked just as I had hoped.

 They protect the glass from bumping, make a non-slip gripper for the kids, and protect the containers in case of falls. 

The perfect solution.

This system should work for as long as the kids need just half a sandwich and some fruit for lunch. Should be a few more years—but by then, they'll have outgrown the lunch bags and the water bottles, so we'll need a new system anyway. And I can reuse the jars for home food storage, or—gasp—canning.

What kind of lunch system do you use?

What do you love about it?

peanut butter banana muffins

Yesterday, I made this Peanut Butter Banana bread from Joy the Baker. Except I made it in muffin form.* And I used Jif peanut butter, which has plenty of sugar, so I omitted the granulated sugar from the recipe. I also left out the peanuts because I didn't have any. 

Delicious. The peanut butter flavor is subtle, but it's there. I love that her recipe uses all my usual substitutions/additions: whole wheat flour, flax seed meal, and plain yogurt. She did the healthifying for me and I love when people do the work for me. I'm not great at asking for help, but I'll take it when it's handed on a silver platter. Or a printable recipe. I'm easy.

I was naughty and whipped up a tiny batch of peanut butter frosting for Hubs and I after the kids went to bed. I don't think I have to tell you how good it was. But just in case you're wondering, it was insanely tasty.

I put frosting-free muffins in the kids' lunch boxes today. That made for some happy kids!

*You know you can do that, right? Any quick bread recipe can be made into muffins. Just like any cake recipe/mix can be made into cupcakes. You just pour the batter into a muffin pan instead of a loaf or cake pan and bake for less time.

**Don't ever make a tiny batch of frosting! Frosting should be made only for cakes. For special occasions. If you learn that you can make a tiny batch of frosting for, say, one or two or five muffins, you might be tempted to do so on a daily basis. And then you have to buy bigger pants, or exercise more. No one wants that.

cheeseburger salad

“Best salad ever.” That's what Hubs keeps saying. I'd say even the kids agree with him. They're not fans of salad, but they love this. I first saw it on The Pioneer Woman, and Ree says she based it on this Pampered Chef recipe. Whoever created it is a genius, as far as I'm concerned. I could eat the ground beef mixed with ketchup, mustard, and barbecue sauce in a bowl with a spoon, and I am not a meat lover.

I didn't have any hot dog or hamburger buns to make the croutons as suggested in the recipe, so we had it with oven fries. The fries were the perfect accompaniment, and made the meal gluten-free. 

I also made it a tiny bit healthier by adding raw spinach and young kale leaves to the romaine, and a cup of leftover cooked quinoa to the ground beef. Sweetpea said, “I know what you put in here. You put quinoa in the meat. But it's ok. I still really like it.” That darn germ ring is a dead giveaway.

The salad provided great dinner conversation. We talked about all kinds of variations we should try. Sweetpea wanted to try it with homemade cheese sauce instead of grated cheese. Hubs wanted honey mustard dressing. (Yuck.) I thought a Big Mac/fry sauce/special sauce type dressing (there are lots of copycat recipes online) would be good.

We all agreed, reluctantly, that we'll have to make this a turkey burger salad (using ground turkey instead of beef) if we add this to our regular rotation. Sigh.

Click over to the recipes and make it! Let me know what variations you come up with, so I can add them to our list. :)

Pioneer Woman's Cheeseburger Salad

Pampered Chef Deluxe Cheeseburger Salad