Rain or Shine

O.K., no more excuses. We are really going camping this weekend. We made reservations for a campsite this time, so we wouldn't back out no matter what the weather. We'll be back late Sunday. Have a fabulous weekend!

Apple-Cinnamon Fruit Leather

This is even easier than the blueberry fruit leather recipe I post a couple days ago, because you don't have to dirty-up a blender.




3 Cups of Applesauce

1 Tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Stir everything together in a mixing bowl.

2. Spray a jelly-roll pan with non-stick baking spray.

3. Pour the applesauce mixture in the jelly-roll pan and spread it out evenly.

4. Bake in a oven set to "warm" or 150 degrees F. for 7 1/2 hours, with the oven door ajar about a inch.



DH suggested I make some kind of dessert sushi out of the fruit leather. I think he was really joking, but I did see something like that recently on another blog, I just can't remember which one. They had used rice crispy-marshmallow treats as the filling instead of rice and fruit roll-ups instead of nori. I think some had gummy worms in the center and some had Swedish fish on top.

Corner View: Best Kept Secret

This week's Corner View is the last one for the Summer and the theme is "best kept secrets".

Shhhh! I've never told anyone this before, but I think I really make all those dolls and doll accessories, because I like playing with them. Giving them to the kids is just a way to make it socially acceptable.












I think my family may have suspected this all along, though.





To discover more not so dark, not so deep, secrets, be sure to visit the other Corner View Participants:

jane, ladybug-zen, ian, bonnie, esti, sophie, cele, modsquad, caitlin, joyce, ani, couturecoucou, kim, a day that is dessert, natsumi, epe, kaylovesvintage, trinsch, c.t.,jeannette, outi, schanett, ritva, dongdong, francesca, state of bliss, jennifer, dana, denise, cabrizette, bohemia girl, ruth, dianna, isabelle, amber, a girl in the yellow shoes, mister e, janis, kari, jgy, jenna, skymring, elizabeth, audrey, allison, lise, cate, mon, victoria, crescent moon, erin, otli, amy, ida, caroline, lisa, dorte, kimmie, la lune dans le ciel, nicola, malo, vanessa, britta, virgina, april, rebecca b, kyndale, sunnymama, karen, kristina, angelina, sophie, dorit,goldensunfamily,Janet, mcgillicutty, desiree,travelingmama, daan, myrtille, cris, Ibb,Susi, Jodi, Lily, Gillian, Jeanette, Athena, Pienduzz,Latisha, Clairette, Kelleyn

Homemade Blueberry Fruit Leather

We have campsite reservations for this coming Friday and Saturday nights, so rain or shine we are going camping. This is going to be Blaze's first time camping and he's been looking forward to it for weeks now, so I want to make this a fun experience for him. Right now I'm planning what food to take along. So far we have marshmallows to toast over an open fire, chocolate bars and graham crackers so we can turn the marshmallows into s'mores, and hot dogs. Also, last night I made a batch of homemade blueberry fruit leather to take along.


Blueberry Fruit Leather


1 1/2 Cups of clean fresh blueberries

2 Tablespoons of maple syrup

1 1/2 Cups of apple sauce


1. Combine the blueberries and maple syrup in a sauce pan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly.





2. After 5 or 6 minutes the blueberries will have turned into a vibrantly colored syrup. Remove from heat and let it cool for about 10 minutes.



3. Pour the blueberry syrup into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Add the apple sauce to the blender and blend to mix everything together.



4. Spray the bottom and sides of a jelly-roll pan with non-stick baking spray and then pour the blueberry mixture onto the tray and spread it out evenly.

5. Bake on the "warm" oven setting or 150 degrees F., with the oven door ajar about an inch ( I used a folded up piece of foil to keep the door from fully closing) for 7 1/2 hours (yes, that really did say 7 1/2 HOURS. The easiest way to do this, is to stick it in the oven just before you go to bed and set your alarm to wake you up in 7 1/2 hours. Let's face it, if you have kids, you probably weren't going to get 8 hours of sleep anyway).

When finished baking, the fruit leather will easily peel out of the pan.



It can be rolled up and sliced with a knife to make fruit roll-ups or it can be cut into other shapes using a pair of scissors.



Since my obsession for the past couple weeks has been cute bento lunches, here is a use for the fruit leather if you are making a special lunch for a child's birthday or other gift giving holiday:



The fruit leather is flexible enough to tie in a bow and was much easier to work with than the store-bought fruit roll-ups, which tend to tear and to stick to my fingers. The thin strips of fruit leather are attached under the little square of sticky rice by applying a tiny bit of water and pressing it firmly together.

Cookbook Review

I wrote this review a year ago, on my previous blog, but I decided to revisit it now, because last night while watching a web show about bento making, a teenager excitedly told viewers how excited she was to be getting this cookbook soon for her birthday.

A few days before Ula returned to college, our book order from Amazon arrived, bringing with it a children's cookbook that I had seen mentioned on several of the bento websites, The Manga Cookbook. I was really excited, because I had seen beautiful food pictures on The Vegan Lunch Box site that claimed to be made using recipes from this cookbook.
My excitement has been rather short lived, however. The first problem we had was not the fault of the cookbook. I had purchased a box of rice flour, so Ula could try the recipe for 3-color Dango, which are sweet rice dumplings, but when she opened the box it was full of Meal Worms. The second problem was the fault of the cookbook. Ula followed the directions exactly and the dumplings looked fine until someone tried to pick them up to eat them.

They were so soft and squishy that the skewers they were served on slid right through the dumplings, leaving the dumplings stuck to the plate and reminding me of the green slime they dump on people"s heads on Nickelodeon.
I thought Ula must have made a mistake, so I tried making a batch, but had very similar results.
Next, Blaze helped me make Jyagatama (potato balls). Blaze thought smashing potatoes with a wooden spoon was lots of fun.

But I was the only one in the family who ate more than one of the finished product. They taste just like potato salad, without the mustard, but I'm the only one here who likes potato salad.

I also tried the recipe for Nikumaki (meat rolls), using bacon, but those turned out more unappetizing than any of the rest. DH kept talking about trying to get the taste out of his mouth.

The only recipe we tried, that everyone agreed turned out well, was Usagi Ringo (rabbit-shaped apple slices).

I do want to try a few more of the recipes to see if my first choices were just bad ones. Maybe I'll have better luck with some of the other recipes.
My family thinks they've had quite enough of it!
DH says he "hates that book with the white hot intessity of a thousand suns !"

There is also a much more thorough and professional review of this book on the site Lunch in a Box:

Lunch in a Box Book Review

Favorite Bento Instructional Videos

The Bento Lunch obsession continues...

I've been watching bento making videos on YouTube to get inspiration.

These are a favorite food for all the members of my family, but we have always purchased them frozen from one of the Asian markets. I think it's funny that this is a cooking show with a dog.




Another cute animal shaped bread product:



This is a video of a young woman making her first bento. I think the ending is cute!

Bento Lunches

It's been a while since I've done a bento post, but I've been making lunches this week to take with us when Blaze goes to swimming class. The class gets out at noon and he's very hungry then, so we've been enjoying picnics right after swimming, instead of going straight home.


Since Monday was the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, I made a moon landing bento lunch:



Today is the 40th anniversary of the splash-down.
If you are interested in learning more about the first moon landing, you should really check out this site:

We Choose The Moon


The tiny crescent moons in our moon landing bento are the results of my newest silly food experiment. Falafel can be shaped by cookie cutters and holds it's shape while deep-fat frying.






Tuesday's bento was a dragon theme, inspired by finishing the third book in the Dragon Slayers Academy Series (our current bedtime stories), Class Trip to the Cave of Doom.
I made peanut butter and jelly dragons with pretzel spikes and apple wings.





We have still been thinking a lot about camping even though we haven't been able to go yet ( this is week two of driving around with a tent and sleeping bags in the car), so Wednesday's lunch had a camping theme.

I guess I should have made "s'mors" as the dessert, but I figured bugs were a big part of any camping trip.




Mostly we've been having our picnics at the Thomas Center and Gardens, because it's close to the pool and very pretty.



This week, it was particularly fun to watch the Thomas Center's fountain, because it was full of soap bubbles ( I don't know why).









Thursday, I did not make a bento lunch, but I still tried something new, ham and cheese roll-ups, served on pretzel "tooth picks":



They are made by melting a little swiss cheese on a tortilla, using the microwave, then adding thin sliced ham and mustard.

How to Make a Pine Needle Chain

How to make a pine needle chain:

1. Find several fresh pine needles, the kind with three long needles attached together. If they are not fresh, they will be too brittle and will break when you try to bend them.



2. Pull two of the needles out of the needle sheath, leaving only one attached.



3. Bend the point of the needle down and slide it into the needle sheath as far as it will go.



You now have your first loop for the chain.

4. Repeat with more pine needles, being sure to stick the needle through the previous loop before making the new loop.



5. Continue until you have reached your desired length.

The White Stuff

It's not really snow, but maybe if we pretend really hard, we'll feel cooler.

Today we made something called Insta-Snow that came in a test-tube from the teacher's supply store. It's in powder form and when water is added it fluffs up into something that looks like snow, although it isn't cold and it doesn't melt.












We also used the soap shavings, left over from our soap carving the other day, to make soap snow balls.



We added a small amount of water to the soap shavings, just enough to make the soap stick together, and squished it and shaped it with our hands. We were able to roll two "snow balls out of the shaving from our two soap carvings.




The day in March when we left Kansas City to move to Florida, there was still snow on the ground. Blaze was 2 years old, and that was the last time he saw real snow.




If you want another way to make fake snow, you might be interested in another project we did back in December:

Borax Snowflakes

Corner View: 7:45 P.M. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

This week's Corner View was really different. It was "what were you doing at 7:45 P.M. on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday", so here is my answer to that question:

Friday at 7:45 P.M. the laundry had just finished drying, so I had gone to the apartment complex's laundry room to pick it up:






On Saturday my son had been digging through his closet and found a set of face paints. "Do you want to play make-up with me?" He asked, so I painted his face to look like a tiger. This was something we had never done together before, because he has never wanted his face painted before, even when we have gone to festivals or carnivals where other kids were getting their faces painted.
At 7:45, I had just finished painting his face. He really liked being a tiger for about a half hour and then his sensory issues kicked in and he told me it had to be washed off right away.






On Sunday at 7:45 P.M. I sat down in the rocking chair in the living room to eat a salad and proof read a three page assignment that my husband will be giving his Anthropology students this week. Blaze, my eight year old was crawling under the rocking chair, pretending he was being swallowed by a whale and my husband was also eating a salad, while working on the computer.





To see what people around the World were doing at 7:45 P.M., visit these other Corner View participants:

jane, ladybug-zen, ian, bonnie, esti, sophie, cele, modsquad, caitlin, joyce, ani, couturecoucou, kim, a day that is dessert, natsumi, epe, kaylovesvintage, trinsch, c.t.,jeannette, outi, schanett, ritva, dongdong, francesca, state of bliss, jennifer, dana, denise, cabrizette, bohemia girl, ruth, dianna, isabelle, amber, a girl in the yellow shoes, mister e, janis, kari, jgy, jenna, skymring, elizabeth, audrey, allison, lise, cate, mon, victoria, crescent moon, erin, otli, amy, ida, caroline, lisa, dorte, kimmie, la lune dans le ciel, nicola, malo, vanessa, britta, virgina, april, rebecca b, kyndale, sunnymama, karen, kristina, angelina, sophie, dorit,goldensunfamily,Janet, mcgillicutty, desiree,travelingmama, daan, myrtille, cris, Ibb,Susi, Jodi, Lily, Gillian, Jeanette, Athena, Pienduzz,Latisha, Clairette, Kelleyn

Swimming

Blaze began "adapted aquatics", swimming lessons for special needs children, yesterday morning. He was a little shy about it at first, but he had a great time. There were enough volunteers that he had an instructor all to himself part of the time and the rest of the time had two instructors helping just him. Part of why he loved this class was that the two instructors were both pretty young college girls and he is such a flirt. He has already told one girl that he loves her and asked the other one to be his best friend.



Yesterday was also the first time that Blaze ever went down the pool slide. Last Summer when he took the adapted aquatics class, he was told he couldn't go down the slide unless he knew how to swim, but yesterday, they let him go down once as a reward for trying so hard to swim.





He is signed up for swimming 4 days a week for the next 4 weeks, but will be only attending for three weeks, because my husband has that last week off and we are going on vacation.