Search Results for: blog homemade vanilla pudding

The Sneaky Mama’s Homemade Frozen Pops

It’s about this time of year, when we’ve hit a few 90 degree weather days, that my children start clamoring for frozen popsicles. I’ll admit that it’s easier to just buy them. You can just buy frozen fruit bars, call it a popsicle, and consider yourself a good mother for having bought a nutritious snack. However, you can equally squeeze in nutritious homemade frozen pops and get a surprising amount of fruit into your children’s tummies. Here are just a few ideas for those hot summer days. Note: I actually have frozen popsicle molds for each of my children and … Continue reading →

Apple Bread Pudding with Warm Butter Sauce

Yesterday we had our first snow of the year. (I know, we’re horribly late.) I don’t generally think of comfort food until that first snow. For some reason, comfort food tastes better when it’s really cold. It’s not as good when it’s 50 degrees outside. . .it has to be a good solid 32 degrees or lest for comfort food to really hit the spot. Furthermore, I tend to mostly like sweet comfort foods. A good shepherd’s pie or macaroni and cheese is okay; but truth be told, I love baking on a cold day. So with that said, I … Continue reading →

Shopping List and Tidbits for the Food Blog: April 7 through April 13

The food blog has been busy, busy, busy this week thanks to the excellent ideas and recipes contributed by our very own frugal blogger, Mary Ann Romans. Keep reading for fabulous ideas in the kitchen, new food trends, and of course, you can always print out your shopping list full of ingredients! Tidbits March was National Pasta Month. However, as you may well know, March was also the month of the blogger hiatus. So National Pasta Month got celebrated with a quiz last week and this week I have posted the Answers to the Noodle Quiz. Are you familiar with … Continue reading →

Homemade Vanilla Pudding

I promised a pudding recipe and tips on how to make it from scratch and so now I’m delivering! Homemade pudding is very, very cheap to make and it’s one of those basic cooking lessons that all good cooks should have tucked into the back of their repertoire of abilities. Pudding is one dish where you definitely have to use the right equipment. You MUST have a heavy bottomed sauce pan to make pudding. A heavy bottom sauce pan will help the pudding mixture heat evenly, thus preventing scorching and lumpiness. The second thing you need to make pudding is … Continue reading →

Homemade Play Dough and Clay Recipes

In my last blog post, I mentioned how you can occupy your preschoolers with various activities during your school days. One of the suggestions that I gave was to let your child play with edible playdough. Playdough is a great activity and it builds motor skills, helps develop creativity, and encourages imaginative play. Before we get to the Playdough and Clay recipes, I want to introduce some very fun and inexpensive (yet very messy) activities for your preschooler. First, one of the best fingerpaints any preschooler can experience is pudding! Yes, that’s right, pudding. This is the perfect activity for … Continue reading →

5 Cool Smoothies for a Hot Day

Homemade smoothies are a great choice for the summer months. Make sure yours include some that have a healthy dose of protein to fuel the muscles for all of those summer activities, such as swimming, hiking and more. Here is a selection of smoothies that can be refreshing, filling and pack a healthy punch to your day. Shop for organic berries and ingredients when possible. Enjoy! Banana Strawberry Protein Smoothie 1 scoop vanilla whey protein 8 ounces of milk 1/2 cup frozen organic strawberries 1 ripe banana 3-4 ice cubes Place all ingredients in a blender and pulse until blended. … Continue reading →

Get Your Ghoul On

If you haven’t bought your child’s Halloween costume yet, good luck. This year’s selection of costumes is downright scary. Honestly, you are better off making a costume from household items than paying upwards of $50 for the gross getups I’ve seen at big name retailers. The money you save making your own costume can then be spent on hosting a rockin’ Halloween bash. Take it from me; you don’t need a ton of cash to throw a Monster Mash in your home. Just exercise some creativity with these budget-friendly ideas: GAMES Ghost Bingo: Make your own cards that spell out … Continue reading →

Mother’s Day Gifts From the Heart

Here’s something any mother can appreciate: Last week my first grader came home with a Xeroxed note from school asking for a “favorite family recipe.” The letter cryptically added that the assignment was part of a “top secret” project students were working on and not to ask too many questions. Given the timing of the note and the fact that I received a very similar one the year before when my daughter was in kindergarten it didn’t take much for me to deduce that I will likely be opening a kid-friendly cookbook this coming Sunday. I will wait until a … Continue reading →

Make Your Own Groceries and Save

Did you know that you can make your own homemade chocolate syrup, pancake or muffin mix and instant pudding and instant oatmeal packets? It is true and can save you a lot of money in the kitchen. Plus when you know how to make your own, you won’t have to run out to the store to replace something when the need arises. Just keep your staples stocked and then whip up the item yourself. You can make most of these items ahead of time, such as on a weekend or when you have yet another snow day. Pancake Mix/Cookie Mix/Brownie … Continue reading →

Thanksgiving Fun in the Kitchen

One my family’s favorite holiday traditions is making at least two or three kid-friendly recipes and allowing the youngest members of the clan to create edible masterpieces with help from mom, dad, grandma or grandpa. Each year my mom, my sister-in-law and I comb through our recipe boxes to find simple yet tasty treats the kids can make with little assistance. I always make sure that we choose at least one dessert and one main or side dish, so they can feel as though they contributed to different aspects of the meal. This year I settled on the following recipes: … Continue reading →