Summer Fruity Ice Pops

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for SUMMER!!  This was a long winter and spring has proven to be a damp and dreary one.  I'm soaking up these warm days, as few and far between as they are, until those lasting summer days emerge!  I'm always looking for a freezer pop recipe because the ones in the store... even the fruit ones... are just so dang packed with sugar, sugar, and more sugar!  Is it just me or do they have a weird aftertaste? Why would you need to sweeten already sweet fruit??  So, I was pleasantly surprised to find this little gem of a recipe.  It is a breeze to prepare and delightfully refreshing without all the extra BLAH.

Where it all began

My maternal Grandma makes delicious home cooked Sunday 'dinners'.  For those of you not from the south, this is not referring to the 6:00 p.m. meal, but rather the one in the middle of the day :)   

We did not go home this Thanksgiving like we have done in year's past so I tried my hand at some of my grandma's recipes.  She was so gracious enough to give me a cookbook when I got married with some of my favorite recipes that she makes.  Like with most grandmas I know, there's one small problem... she doesn't measure a thing and knows it's 'right' by the look of it.  Hmmm.... As you can probably suspect, my Thanksgiving meal didn't turn out 'Just Like Grandma's' because I made them based on her recipes and not by the bountiful knowledge of years and years of experience she has perfecting these recipes.  When people asked how it went, my response was "Well, it wasn't horrible."  Haha!  Well, it wasn't.  But it sure wasn't Grandma's cooking.  The macaroni was a little dry, hers is moist and creamy.  The meatballs had a little too much vinegar, hers are crisp and wonderful.  The one thing that did turn out just. right. were her candy coated pecans.  I used a combination of pecans and walnuts and when I tasted hers at Christmas, mine were just the same!  Regardless of the fact that my meal wasn't as good as hers, it was still worth the attempt just so I could tell her I tried.  Her face lit up with pleasure and delight. She has passed down great treasures and memories to me.  Quite the gift.  Free to her, but priceless to me!

Now, where does my habitual substitution-savy come from?  Why, my paternal Grandma of course!  A woman raising four kids on a meager teacher's salary had to stretch the buck.  My grandpa's slogan "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" was how they ran their house.  If she didn't have a certain ingredient, she would substitute what she did have.  My dear paternal Grandma is no longer with us, so when I got married my aunts and uncles came together and made a scrapbook of some of her favorite and most used recipes.   She didn't have fancy recipe cards, just simple notecards where she jotted down the ingredients.  My favorite ones are the cards that have the recipes, but way down in the 'how-to' section she often would tell us what she substituted with or what makes an equally great substitution.  Some of my favorite memories of her are when I used to stand on a stool beside her in their small kitchen and cook with her in the summer time.  Her kitchen was never big, but it was full of love.  An equally great memory, Jesus' birthday cake.  Every Christmas she would have a birthday cake that she would adorn with candles and we would all sing Happy Birthday to.  What a great way to remind us all the true meaning of the magical holiday.  Although all I have are memories now, rest assure her legacy remains.  No matter how big my kitchen may be, there's always room to cook with love.

And so my passion began.  I want to build up my skills, test out my grandma's tried and true recipes, and try new creations and remember where to find the recipes later on, so that I can share these special moments with my children and grandchildren.  Food brings us back to the happy times and makes us all family.

New Year, New Calendar, New Idea

So this was the starting step to my new found fire to get this blog up and rolling.  Last week, I started a food calendar.  To keep me sane and to use up the food we had in the fridge, to be quite honest.  However, it has become a wonderful tool for both myself and my husband.  He can easily fix his own food for lunch, if needed, based on lunch and snack ideas presented.  And with a baby, I don't have to think "What's for dinner?" and waste energy - figuratively and literally - standing in front of an open fridge or staring aimlessly in front of the pantry.  I've discovered that the 'mommy brain' is a true and valid feature of my new life.  I don't remember stuff like I used to.  Thusly, a LOT of food went to waste, especially perishable fruits and veges.

Our New Year's Resolution is to eat better.  I must admit, with a baby and a nice Italian joint that delivers, we have let our eating habits go.  I've always loved dabbling in food and my dear husband is good to at least try everything I fix.  Yes, everything.  Did I mention how incredibly supportive he is?  There have been things that have not been great at all.  There was that one time... warm tuna mac, corn in the corn bread.  Who knew?  I would agree with him, that the warm tuna was less than appealing - and don't mess with good ol' mac and cheese.  I'm excited to say though, that his ham, mustard, and cheddar cheese sandwich days have come around to the (my) dark side {insert only slightly-evil laugh here} and he now enjoys coffee BLACK and blue cheese.  I'm proud.  Even if he will never understand the non-pregnancy appeal to mustard and cold mac and cheese or Texas Pete on just about anything.  But I digress...

Back from that incredibly long, but poignant tangent... ah hum... Our New Year's Resolution, well not even a resolution because we never keep those.  But after the yummy delicious indulgence of all sorts of family Holiday cooking, we decided we just couldn't eat like that forever and needed better on a normal, everyday routine. My goal is to cook more at home and eat processed foods less.  I'm starting to think of cooking for not just my husband, but my family now.  I'd like to be able to feed my son what I cook for us.  Well, this requires more natural, wholesome ingredients.  I envision baking cookies with him when he gets older and involving him in dinner making whenever I can.  My goal - lofty as it may be now, did I mention he's only 7 months old - is to offer a variety of foods and get an inquisitive young foodie in return.  What fun to share an adventurous spirit and love for food with my family.

So, while I feel like "WHY AM I STAYING HOME?  BLERG." I now realize that I have this amazing opportunity to do all the creative things I've always wanted to do.  Take cooking classes?  Photography lessons?  Paint?  Yard sale?  Flea Market search?  So if I make money at it, great.  But if not, I've always done the most important thing...

Helped to make my family healthy and happy.


This is my gift to them.

A fresh start

And all of a sudden it was 4:00 a.m.

After finding a blogger template that I liked and downloading it, I dabbled some in the html.  And by dabbling, yes, I mean barely.  Gotta love the Google search engine.  Helped tremendously.  I just know enough to try a few things.  Hello college Fortran.  I passed that class with an A, but only programmed a few small things.  Focus on small. Gotta love help from others who looooooved that stuff.  I sure don't.

Funny thing was, I thought it was 3, but it was actually 3:50, not 2:50.  Oops. Guess my tired eyes were more tired than my mind.  Baby called at 6 am this morning.  Yeah, I was feeling it.  But, dear husband (DH), got up with him for me.  Have I mentioned how wonderful he is?  :)  I was just excited.  And even as I tried to go to sleep, my mind raced for things to try and do with the html this morning when I got up.  It was close to 5 before I finally drifted off to sleep.  The problem was I felt kind of puny yesterday, headache, sore throat and the like. I got up at 11, laid around until 1 and took a nap around 3.  Again, have I mentioned how wonderful the DH is?  He looked after little man for the majority of the day yesterday.

So here we are.  First post.

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