Summer is nearly upon us and many of us will be looking for fun things to do with the children in our lives. One thing I love to do with my grandchildren is bake. I recently attended a cookie decorating class in hopes of picking up a few tips about some new techniques or products to use. The cookies we used were homemade (which are always fun to do with children) but if you find you don’t have enough time to do everything, using refrigerated cookie dough works just fine. There is a wide range of cookie cutters available on the market today for most any interest your children would have. If you can’t find exactly what you are looking for, trace a pattern and make your own!
Once your cookies have baked and cooled, frost with your favorite sugar cookie icing. Buttercream and Royal frostings are always popular. Experiment with making different colors of frosting using gel or powdered coloring. Put the prepared frostings in a baggie, cut one corner of the baggie diagonally and let the children use their creative skills to add frosting to the cookies.
The class I attended introduced me to Sprinkle Pop which is one of many brands of sprinkle type toppings available on the market in many different forms. Some of the varieties include sanding sugar which is translucent and quite fine and delicate; crystal sugar is also translucent but has larger, coarser crystals; nonpareils are round; quins come in many different shapes; edible glitter; and dragees which have a hard outer shell. It is important to be a good label reader when purchasing decorations for your cookies to make sure they are all edible. Some decorations will be labeled for use as decoration only and should not be consumed. They should be removed before serving the cookies. The FDA advises to avoid the use of non-edible food decorative products.
Parking your car underneath a tree can actually do permanent damage to the finish of your car. It seems that we have all experienced parking under a tree and discovering some sap on the hood or trunk of the car. I always thought this was just a minor inconvenience in life and never worried too much about removing the sap. According to Consumer Reports magazine, “Heat accelerates how sap sticks to the paint. The longer you wait, the harder it is to remove.” Sap left on the car can actually eat through the paint.
Spring seems to be starting slowly this year. We have had some beautiful warm and sunny days and I realized that I need to get back into the habit of applying sunscreen. One of our favorite pastimes, when my grandsons visit, is walking down the hill to the bridge over the creek and tossing stones into the stream. The boys could do this for hours. It is so easy to just head outside without a thought to how long we will be standing in the sun.
PURSLANE (Portulaca oleracea) is a weed in my garden that I curse; it comes uninvited, spreads fast, and keeps on giving. Purslane grows nearly everywhere in the world and is known as a weed, as I see it, or an edible plant. Some cultures embrace purslane as a delicious and exceptionally nutritious treat!
We had friends just return from Hawaii who were raving about the Poke Bowls they enjoyed there. I had never heard of them but they piqued my curiosity enough to do a little research on them.
Summer and grilling just seem to go together at my house. Typically it is meat we are grilling but I have recently been interested in branching out to grilling fruit to complement the meat or use as a side or dessert.
Place the cut side of the melon down and cut slices from stem end to blossom end roughly an inch apart.
Now you have watermelon sticks that are easy to serve and easy to eat.
Next cut slices from blossom to stem end about an inch apart. Do this on the flat side. Flip to the other flat side and repeat the process.
Then slice down through the melon from top edge to rind. You can now dump out the cubes. Feel free to clean up the rind if you find you have left more melon there than you like.
Enjoy.
June is National Iced Tea Month! I didn’t know we celebrated iced tea nationally but after reading that iced tea makes up 85% of all tea consumed in the U.S., I concur that Iced Tea should be celebrated. Further, I learned that iced tea was born in America. Wikipedia relates that iced tea started to appear as a novelty in the U.S. during the 1860s. (Prior to that, very little tea was consumed as it was thought to be unpatriotic after the Revolutionary War.) By 1870, iced tea was quite widespread as it was available on hotel and railroad station menus. Its popularity increased quickly after being introduced at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis by Richard Blechynden.
