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Dodger and the Pantry

We’ve been having trouble lately with our dog Dodger and food. Ever since my oldest daughter went to college Dodger has been stealing food constantly. I think she must’ve been feeding him more than we realized! Dodger has always eaten food off the counter or out of the garbage can. He also regularly rips open ziploc bags because he assumes that anything stored in a Ziploc bag must be delicious. In the past he has opened Ziploc bags containing things like flashcards because he just assumes they have food inside them.

Super Bowl Cupcakes

Last night I was browsing around on pinterest and pinning Super Bowl food.  I saw some cool desserts, so I decided to make NY Giants cupcakes and cakepops for the game.  They didn’t turn out nearly as cute as I was hoping!

New York Giants Cupcakes

Cooking with Kids

My son making pancakesI enjoy cooking with my children.  It is great to be able to teach them to cook and encourage them to eat healthy foods.  Studies show children are more likely to eat a meal if they help prepare it, so it is a fun way to help them learn about nutrition.

The other great thing is that teaching them to cook when they are young can pay off.  Before my oldest daughter went to college she cooked for me at least once a week, which was extremely helpful.  Now I am working on teaching my 12 year old son, Robert. He has a few meals that he can make completely by himself, such as making buttermilk pancakes from scratch, which he did tonight.  For more complicated meals we still cook together, but I am sure in a few years he will be independent.  Boy Scouts is also helpful for this, since the boys do all their own cooking when they go camping.

Apple Cherry Breakfast Bake Recipe

I am always looking for something new and different for breakfast. I am also trying to eat more fruit, and this is a delicious way to do that. I made this Apple Cherry Bake for breakfast, and it was sweet and tasty.

Apple Cherry Breakfast Bake Recipe #recipe

It is kind of like a fruit crisp, only without the topping. It does take a while to bake, but I think it would work well in a slow cooker, so I am going to try that next time and start it before bedtime. It is a perfect brunch dish, and would go well with muffins or eggs to make a complete and tasty meal.

Tips for Safe Winter Driving

snowy road (640x318)

The worst thing about snow is having to drive in it.  This year we have been very lucky and have had only a small amount of snow, but that is not typical.  I live in the Syracuse NY area, which has the highest average snowfall of any city of over 50,000 people.  Last year we had 179 inches of snow, so I have had way too much experience driving in snow, and here are some tips I have for safe winter driving.

Vegetarian Chili with Zucchini and Abodo Sauce

Vegetarian Chili with Zucchini and Abodo Sauce

We have been eating more vegetarian food lately, partly because it can be healthier, and partly because my 18 year old is a vegetarian and she is still home on college break.  I made this recipe for Vegetarian Chili earlier in the week, and it came out very tasty. I added in a little sauce from a can of chipotle chile in adobo sauce, and it made a huge difference in the taste.  I didn’t add any of the chilies from the can, but just poured in about a teaspoon of the sauce.  It added a rich smoky flavor to the dish.  It is amazing what a big difference a small addition can make.

Spinach Pear Salad Recipe

Spinach Pear Salad

With trying to eat healthier I’ve been eating lots and lots of salad. So I’ve been looking for ways to make my salads more interesting and go beyond the standard lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes.  I made this Spinach Pear Salad and it was delicious.  I haven’t ever used fruit with salad greens much before, but I can see it is an excellent combination. My husband usually has a token serving of salad, but he had seconds of this one and finished the bowl off.

Sea-Band Nausea Relief Wristbands

My 12 year old son has always suffered from car sickness.  His older sisters get nauseous sometimes in the car, but it is much more frequent for him.  He rarely actually throws up, but a long trip makes him feel miserable.  When he was about 5 years old we discovered the Sea-Band Wristbands, and we have been using them every since.  Sea-Band works by exerting constant, gentle pressure on a point on an acupressure point on the inner wrist.  It brings effective relief within five minutes of being applied and can be used before or after the onset of nausea.  These Sea-Bands are FDA approved for nausea, and they work extremely well for my family.

Bob Marley Headphones and Christmas Misses

Bob Marley Rasta HeadphonesDid you have any big Christmas misses?  One of the things on my 15 year old’s Christmas list was Skull Candy headphones. She broke hers about 4 months ago, and rather than spending money on new ones has been borrowing the headphones of everyone else in the house.  So I bought her a pair for her stocking, and I naively picked the pretty ones at the left because I liked the colors.  I though she would like having striped headphones.

Well when she opened her stocking she was horrified!  She said she couldn’t believe I had bought her these headphones, because they are the “stoner” headphones.  It turns out these are Bob Marley Rasta headphones, and at her high school all the stoner kids wear them. She tells me it would be social suicide to show up at school with these headphones.  So she traded with her sister, who is in college and assured me no one in her dorm will even notice.

The Perfect Easy Gift–Gift Cards

If you are still shopping for Christmas presents time is running out!  If you are looking for a present gift cards are a wonderful idea, no matter who you are shopping for.  I like to give gift cards to many people on my list.  Let’s face it, some people are very picky about what they get, and for them a gift card is the solution.

Gift cards

Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

My children like all the fancy Christmas cookies we make this time of year, but they still love the old fashioned favorites we have year round.  So we always make chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal cookies for Christmas too.  This year to make the oatmeal cookies a little more seasonal I added dried cranberries instead of dried raisins, and they taste great.  The recipe is basically a standard oatmeal cookie recipe, although the spices are changed up a little bit to got with the cranberries.

Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Zero Board Game Review

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

zero board gameZero is a new board game from University Games, which asks players to search their minds for the “least popular” answers.  The game makers surveyed over 450 people to find the answers questions, and the object of the game is to pick the least popular correct answer. This is actually pretty tricky, because you have to pick an answer which is correct, but not popular.  This is one of the best games my family has played lately, and it caused lots of laughs as we played.

Mango Chicken Quesadillas

Mango Chicken Quesadillas

It is always  good to have a nice, hot lunch as an alternative to sandwiches.  I used to make lunch for my children almost every day, because we homeschooled and I wanted to make sure they got a healthy lunch.  But now my oldest is in college, my middle child is in public school and just my son and I are left at home.  He complains frequently that I never make lunch anymore now that it is just him, and instead we have leftovers or sandwiches. But it doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of time making a meal for just two of us. This is a quick and easy lunch for us.

Chocolate Coconut Meringue Cookie Recipe

Working on the assumption that almost everything tastes better with chocolate, I decided to add chocolate chips to my Meringue Cookies this year. I like to make Meringues, because they are so simple and involve so few ingredients, and they melt in your mouth when you eat them.  They are also about as low calorie as you can get for Christmas cookies. The only drawback is my recipe calls for cream of tartar, which I only use a few times a year. So I usually have to ransack the pantry to find it, because it has invariably ended up all the way in the back underneath something.