Kaileigh has had acid reflux since she was born and was put on Zantac
syrup at 5 months. Back then it was easy to medicate her. Squirt the
liquid into a bottle with a bit of milk and she was good to go.
Jump forward to 18 months and we have a toddler that hates the minty nasty
syrup. Seriously, what toddler likes mint? We tried different flavors
available at the pharmacy and they were all bad. I tried sucking up Tang into the
syringe but still yucky. Then we tried mixing it with chocolate milk.
Behold the power of chocolate!

Kaileigh is now 4, she knows the meds are in the chocolate milk, and still
she drinks it down like a trooper. I was never happy with the chocolate syrups
or powders on the market. So I started using Alton Brown's chocolate sauce recipe. Love it.
Jump forward a bit more and you have a 4yr old that loves to help me cook.
I double the batch usually. Today, I was busy trying to answer questions
that were spewing forth from Kaileigh. Before I knew it, I had dumped in
waaaay too much cocoa powder. Grab your buckets people and stop on by. I
have a vat of chocolate sauce sitting here cooling. If you are too far
away to stop on by then make up your own sauce.

Alton's Chocolate Sauce to the rescue

1 1/2 cups water
3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups Dutch-processed cocoa
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons light corn syrup

In a small pot, bring water and sugar to a boil and whisk in cocoa,
vanilla, salt, and corn syrup. Whisk until all of the solids have
dissolved. Reduce sauce until slightly thickened. Strain if needed and cool to room
temperature. Alton says to put it into a squeeze bottle but I like just using one of my pint canning jars.

Free is good.

I put the word out in my family that I was looking for canning jars. Have you all even looked at the price of those darn things recently? So I scored quite a few of them from my mother in law. Yeehaw!

Free is good. Free can also be dirty. These jars had been in the attic for who knows how long and they had a funky film on them that would not go away no matter how hard I scrubbed. I ran them through the diswasher once. Then I brought out the scrubby pad and tried that. Nope. Sorry. No can do. Try that same scrubby pad with some dry baking soda and woohoo. We have clean jars. Clean FREE jars.

Now I can store my bulk spices and teas. Oh and maybe can some of these perfect pickle sized cucumbers that are growing in the garden. Awww, I love summer.

Get Your Fluids Here!

I know you all know how important it is to keep the fluids flowing when you are sick but a electrolyte replacer such as Pedialyte is darned expensive. $5-$6 a liter is just plain silly especially when the stuff really doesn't taste so great. I have yet to see a kid just suck it down either.

I found several recipes for a homemade version but none of them tasted all that great. Adding sugarfree koolaid or crystal light helped but eh still not all that. This week I had the lovely chance to make enough batches of the stuff that I found one that works for my family.

1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 C Juice Drink Mix (from the Bishops Store House)
1 1/3 Liter cold water (yeah, odd amt of water but that is the size of my container)

Mix it all up and chill.

If you don't have access to the Bishop's Store House then you could try another sweetened beverage but I honestly have not found a match. Store what you use and use what you store.

As the Stomach Churns...

Ah the joys of being sick. A week ago, Kaileigh had an insanely high fever that lasted for a day. The next morning she totally rebounded and went back to bouncing off the walls. Few days later and I have a fever too. After a week of being sickly, I am finally getting over whatever it was that attacked my tummy. Now poor Chuck is in bed. Ircing me making pitiful requests for sustenance and warmth.

Last years spree of illnesses introduced us to Wiggy's Poncho Liner. Yeah, I know. What in the world does a poncho liner have to do with pneumonia? Have you ever had the freezing cold shakes that come along with an illness? This will cure what ails ya. Chuck grabbed two of them for us and I have to say that I have never had a warmer blanket. They certainly aren't the cutest things ever but screw cute when it comes to warmth.

I just ordered a few more for our 72hr kits too. Oh and I am not sure if it is something Wiggy's worked into it or not but they shed water well. So pour yourself a tall glass of homemade electrolyte replacer and cuddle up.

We All Scream For Snowcream!!!

Hooray! We finally have snow! Chuck suggested that we make snow cream. Normally I poopoo the idea because I was raised to think that snow is gross. You avoid the yellow snow. You don't eat the snow and you certainly don't bring it into the house, add stuff to it and pretend that it is a fine dish of ice cream. I was an avid reader of the Little House books so I convinced my mom one year to make some snow cream. What we created was far from anything you would want to eat. It resembled the slop that they serve street urchins that then chant "please sir, can we have some more?".

Today was different. I was so super excited about the snow that I agreed. I could make something better than all those years ago. We quickly layered on enough clothes to make the mom in "A Christmas Story" grin with pride. I grabbed two big mixing bowls and headed outside.

After we trashed most of the snow with all of our angels, snow ball throwing and dog wallowing I found several small patches of pristine snow. I started to carefully scoop the top layer. Ignoring the vast amount of snow balls that were hitting me in the back.
I left my two huge bowls outside with the family while I came in to prep the following:

1/2 can Evap Milk (aprox)
2 cups half & half (aprox)
1c sugar
2t vanilla
2 big bowls of snow

Mix everything well. Bring in your snow and nest one bowl in the other to keep the top one properly chilled. Dump the milk mixture onto the snow and begin to mix away. Serve in chilled bowls. Follow up with straws if it melts too quickly.

Holy cow was it good. I cannot believe all these years I have missed out on it. *sigh* Never again!

Now get out there and find some snow and start scooping!

Foofy Foof Mermaid Tutus

The other morning I got an update: "Mommy, I don't want a Jungle Book party anymore. I want a MERMAID party. Everyone has to be a mermaid. Mermaids with foofy skirts". Off hops the almost 4yr old as she dictates mermaid colors. Goodbye jungle party. I really wasn't looking forward to a sand pit anyhow.

Foofy skirts should be easy enough right? A few hundred yards of tulle in various blues and greens, slicing it into sections and knot tying right? Lucky for me, tulle is on sale so off we go. Ten foofs down and I start getting requests for stuffed animals to have foofs. I drew the line on the dog foofs. Not because the dogs would care but I grow tired of tulle. The ladies at the fabric store always want to know why you are getting whatever fabric. Especially when you buy 40yrds of tulle. I have heard how they all dislike tulle. Each has their own little story about having to roll up yards of tulle from flopped weddings.

After all the slicing is said and done, I cannot wait to see all the kids in their foofy foofs. Now I just have to decide if I should do something else for the kids that don't want a skirt. Off to ponder.

Crunchy

I have recently been inspired to dive back into the crunchy goodness of homemade granola. It has been a long time since I made granola but I lived off the stuff in college. (Yeah I know, big shock.)

Back then I made granola not because I had a great love of the homemade but I couldn't afford to buy the pre-made ones. Then I learned how much better I liked my own. My tiny little contraband dorm room toaster oven could crank out some fine tooth jarring goodness. Almost all of my ingredients came from the university cafeteria too. My little recipe involved things like 2 packets of syrup, 1/4 packet pilfered salt, 4 packets of oatmeal. It was almost a challenge to how far I could stretch my meal card dollar.

Chuck recently requested I make a granola recipe he heard on NPR (Nigella Lawson) and Kaileigh constantly wants "those crunchy things" so I decided to give it a try again. Where better to start than Alton's granola. I made one round of Nigella's granola bar and one round of Alton's. Alton's won. Nigella's was good but not what I was looking for. It was more of a granola bar. (Yes, I know thats what the title of the recipe is but I wanted variety.) It sadly sat in the pantry for weeks and has since been crushed with a hammer and is currently being enjoyed by visitors to my birdfeeder.

I now use Alton's basic recipe and alter the nuts and fruit each time to whatever I have on hand. Which seems to be inhaled by our family all too quickly. It is great as a cereal or you can toss some in yogurt or my fav, scoop out some in a bag and add a handful of M's and Kaileigh is happy.

fyi I won't hate you if you slum and use fake syrup. I have used the fake stuff several times recently. Keep in mind that mine got brown alot faster with fake syrup but it was wetter for some reason. low and slow is the key.