Monthly Archives: June 2014

I do not like wasting food.  When we make homemade bread it usually disappears quickly, but there are some weeks that we just don’t get around to eating it.  I then put it into the freezer and it seems it might sit there for quite some time.  When I take it out, it is usually a little bit harder and not so soft. That is when I came up with this idea……

I cut my bread in slices, almost cutting through to the bottom but leaving it still in tact.

I then poured melted butter down the center of the bread.  Paying careful attention to make it into each and every slit.

I then mixed up some cinnamon and sugar combination and sprinkled it over top of the bread.  I wrapped it in foil and put it into the oven with dinner.  It was on 350 for about 20 minutes.  

Finally I mixed up some powdered sugar and water to a drizzle consistency.  Poured it over top of the bread, making sure to reach into the crevices.

There you have a delicious alternative to day old hard stale leftover bread.

Teenage girls seem to be the easiest to make gifts for.  Especially if the girl is into makeup and spa items.  Then this gift is perfect gift to make.

We bought a muffin tin and put a cupcake liner inside.  We then hot glued nail polish into the liners and stuffed foil confetti strips around the polish

We saved one of the holes for a homemade nail polish remover jar.  We cut a sponge into a strip as high as the jar and wrapped it around in a circular snake pattern and put into the jar.  We then poured nail polish remover into the jar.  You can stick your finger into the hole to remove polish.

We made a raw sugar hand and foot scrub to go along with the polish.  Take 1 cup of raw sugar and add 2 T coconut oil.  Mix around and place into a container .

 To have the smoothest hands or feet apply this with wet hands and rub .   I usually purchase a peppermint foot scrub during the summer months to remove all that yucky heel hardness and that still doesn’t seem to work 100%.  This my friend is amazing.  Try it, you won’t believe at how much better your feet and hands feel.  I absolutely love it and recommend it to everyone.

We put the sugar scrub in a jar and placed it into this cup.  Topped it with a bath pouf and a straw.

This was a hard item to package without spilling things, so we took a cardboard box lid and covered it with wrapping paper on the bottom.  We lay tissue paper inside the lid and put the gifts on top.  
 Simple and easy.

Nothing says summer better than frozen pops and treats.  In our household, we can go through A LOT!!!  

Almost every night after swimming all day  they all want the same thing….a frozen treat.  This is an area in our home that can deplete our household food budget quickly.  So, I had to make a plan.

This plan had to meet the following requirements:

• economical
• frugal
• not too time consuming to make
• healthier than store bought kinds
• and pass the Maryon’s taste test

For this major pops/frozen treat making day or two, I had to make sure that we had an empty freezer.  I used my stand up freezer which I haven’t been using since, getting one of those 6 foot deep chest freezers.  I used cookie sheets and muffin tins to hold all the  cups so that it would be easy to transfer them from the kitchen, upstairs to the freezer, downstairs.

I made sure to purchase A LOT of 3 ounce bathroom cups. We bought about 600 for this frozen treat marathon.  I went to our local Dollar store and bought popsicle sticks for holders.

Onto our recipes………

My first frozen treat, brownie ice cream cups, I had  my husband in mind.  He loves brownies and ice cream.  I decided to make him a bunch of these treats.  I took cupcake liners and filled them with brownie mix and topped them with sundae ingredients.  I froze them individual on cookie sheets and then put them into plastic containers.  This is his favorite.

This treat was in honor of my husband as well, he LOVES drumstick ice cream cones from the store.  Unfortunately when we buy a box around here, they get eaten really quickly.  I decided to try my hand at making them.  They turned out delicious.  This would be one of my favorite ice cream treats as well as my husbands 2nd favorite.

Okay last one for my husband…can you tell he likes ice cream ???  This was very simple to make cookies and ice cream sandwiched in between.  I stored these in ice cream pails.

Dirt cup popsicles.…this was invented because my children really like dirt cups and I thought why not make them into popsicles.  Make them exactly how you would normally, just freeze them.  Their favorite thing to eat is the worm inside…..

These were in honor of the kinds that you can purchase at the grocery store….

Orange dreamsicle. These were super easy to make, just two ingredients…ice cream and orange soda. When making these I put them in mini muffin tins to prevent spilling.

Root beer float popsicles.  Have you ever had these from the Schwan man?  I don’t even know if they are around anymore, but I had them growing up and they were so good.    Just ice cream and root beer.

Okay these ones I feel good about giving them to my children and will occasionally give them for an afternoon snack because they are healthy.  It is a berry smoothie pop.  We made so many of these last year but they still love them.  My children’s favorite.

These were fun to make, I  heard about frozen bananas at the fair but have never tried them.  Well we did.  Not bad if you eat them when completely frozen, if you wait like my little ones do they become mushy.  They don’t mind, but uggghhh I do! A favorite of the toddlers.

What is summer without a bomb pop?  The ice cream man would bring these by and they were so good.  I don’t like to buy them for my children because they are just sugar, dye, and water.  But for the occasional treat, I don’t mind.  These took some time to make as you have to freeze them in layers, but if you are making 600 popsicles you have some time in between to let them set.  These would have to be one of my favorites, I don’t want to admit because it is just sugar.  But it tastes to me like a bomb pop I had as a child.  Takes me back.

Have you ever had a frozen lemonade at a fair?  They are very good on a hot summer day, these to me taste exactly like them.  We make strawberry lemonade pops.  A favorite of some tweens.

Okay, do you remember pudding pops as a child?  These are another nostalgic food I like to make for my kiddies.  They all really love these.  Just be prepared for a mess.  Well if you have some under 4’s like we do—4 to be exact they WILL make a mess:)  be prepared serve outdoors and let them jump back in the kiddie pool.

Here is my handsome 4 year old having one of his favorite treats.  Gummy bear sparkle pops.  Yes this is either you like them or you don’t kind of pop.  Seems the little ones do mostly, probably because there are gummy bears inside the pop.  Its like free candy to them!

Another favorite treat of summer time is banana splits.  Most of the time, we run out of bananas before we finish up the ice cream toppings.  This was a way to ensure that when we wanted a banana split, we got one.  It is basically a banana split in a cup.  

This is a great treat for someone that wants single serve ice cream in a cup treats.  We created these out of our favorite toppings.  This one is caramel sauce, Reeses peanut butter cups chopped up and ice cream.  You can use any of your favorite candy bars or cookies and put into a cup and freeze.  it helps to keep portion size down when eating.

Okay and finally…..for Mom…….

Since I love frozen treats just like my children on a hot summer day, I didn’t want to feel guilty for eating them.  I had to come up with a different alternative.  These pineapple coconut pops are the answer.  In just under 50 calories per serving you can have great tasting, natural, whole food frozen treats without the guilt.  Plus they taste amazing.

Now that my freezer is stocked…..it is onto something else……hmmmm

Take note that is garbage bag snack mix in the bottom of the freezer, it keeps well when stored in the freezer.