Banana Ice Cream

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This treat is amazing, if you like bananas.  There’s only three ingredients and it only takes a few minutes…but it tastes so good.

Slice 4 ripe bananas onto a cookie sheet lined with a silicone baking sheet (or wax paper.)  Freeze until hard, about 3 hours.

Place 1/2 cup milk into a blender.  Add a few banana pieces at a time and blend into a puree.  Keep adding until all the bananas are used and you like the consistency. (Note:  I have a Vitamix blender and made the mistake of adding all the banana pieces at once.  It was really hard on my machine though we finally did get to the creamy ice cream texture.)

Variations:  Add 2 Tablespoons of peanut butter or peanut butter powder (PB2) to the milk.  2 Tablespoons of cocoa powder is also good.  Up to 1 cup of other fruits can be added like frozen strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, mango etc.  The bananas are essential to the creaminess of the dish so the more bananas you have the better it will be.

Emergency Snacking

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There’s a time of day when the 4 year old should have had a nap, but now if you lay him down he won’t sleep tonight.  It’s the time of day when he sees his sister’s chocolate protein bars that are tucked away in her closet, so her brothers and sisters won’t eat them, and she can have them for after her pointe class.  The time when he brings the box to her with his big baby eyes and says, “Can I have one?”  And she has to say, “no” because if he gets one then they all will want one and she won’t have what she needs for dance class.

Then his cute little lip sticks out, and big alligator tears trickle down his cheeks and your heart breaks and melts into a pile of enabling goo.  And you know if you don’t do something, that sad little moment will turn into a kicking, screaming, thrashing, a “oh why didn’t I give the toddler a nap?”, moment.

When this happens, I take him by the little hand.  And put a spoon in it.  Then we pour honey, peanut butter, cocoa powder, and oats in a pan and wait for the magic to happen.

Snack Balls

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup honey

2 Tablespoons cocoa powder

1 cup quick oats

Place honey in a saucepan over medium high heat.  Stirring until it is very runny.  Turn off the heat and add the peanut butter and cocoa powder, stirring until smooth.  Add oats and stir until mixture forms a dough.  Roll tablespoons of dough into balls and let cool for a few minutes (or don’t.)  Eat right away and store the leftovers (there won’t be any) in an airtight container.  Then cuddle your boy with a good book.

Just a little spraypaint…

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I’m having a great time at the new house.  The previous owners left quite a bit of stuff.  I’ve been cleaning up some of it and selling it on craigslist to help pay for the renovations.  Some of it is just trash, like the original bath rug with the backing that turned to dust.  And some of it I can hit with a touch of spraypaint and make like new :).

Above is the brown return air vent from Heidi’s new aqua and white bedroom. A rusty vent fan cover from the boy’s bathroom, a 3/4″ steel conduit pipe ($3) that I hacksawed to fit the window in my office, and wooden finials and mounting brackets that held a smaller curtain bar in the master bedroom.

Add the last bits of white primer and spraypaint from the garage….

Total out of pocket cost:  $3.  Money saved:  $50.  Smile.

The fabric should arrive today for my office curtains and Heidi’s room will be carpeted this week!!!! I can’t wait to see it all come together.

New Food Budget Recommendations

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Did you know that when the government calculates the rate of inflation commodities like food and gasoline aren’t included?  According to this site inflation rates for 2011 were 3%.  My food and gasoline went up a lot higher than that.

Take the lowly graham cracker for example.  When I first wrote the Grocery Shrink ebook, I was able to buy a 16 oz box at Aldi for $.99 ($.06 per oz).  Now the box only holds 14.4 oz and costs $1.49 ($.10 per oz).  The price of graham crackers has gone up 60% since then.  Thankfully graham crackers aren’t essential and I can choose to not buy them…but nearly all foods have risen in price in a similar fashion.  By shopping the Grocery Shrink way–we don’t feel these prices as keenly as someone else might, but I’m starting to feel it more and more.  Sale prices are still dropping, but store limits (you can only buy 2 at that price) are squeezing my ability to maximize the dollar like I used to.

I’m still working with a $50 per person per month food budget.  Since I have a large family that gives me $400 to play with for the month.  Sticking to that budget is getting a lot harder to do.  And I’ve been thinking about it…a lot.  Some of my children are very young.  While my 6 year old out eats me on a regular basis my 4 year old and 9 month old don’t.

I think some new budget recommendation are in order, at least until food prices come back in line with inflation.  And yes, they can.   Food prices fluctuate madly while inflation prices rise more steadily.  So until further notice, my budget recommendations are:

$100 per male adult (or child age 12 and over) per month

$75 per female adult (or child age 12 and over) per month

$50 per child (age 11 to age 2) per month

$30 per child (age conception to 2) per month (Even if a child is still in the womb or breastfeeding, mom needs to up her nutrition during this time–and may need to take advantage of more convenience items.)

For my family, our new grocery budget would be $480/month.  We can’t afford that right now, so I’m still going with my $400 budget, but as soon as our circumstances change, I’ll be asking for that raise :).  If you can afford to take your raise now….go for it!

Free Printable Menu for February 2012

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It’s that time again.  Time to plan your supper’s so you don’t have to think about it the rest of the month.  To make it easier for you, here’s a cute little printable menu. Click on the picture below to download a printable pdf.

Fruitful Saturday

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Saturday was wonderful!  My mother came over and helped with the baby so I could paint.  I painted Heidi’s second closet, her trim, and the boy’s bathroom.  This gets us a step closer to a functioning house! 

When we take out our sunken Harvest Gold bathtub in the master bathroom, it will stop water flow to our only functioning bath.  We will have to open the boy’s bathroom for use, which has been closed from wall-paper removal and a large hole in the shower’s fiberglass floor.  Now that it is painted, I can clean it all up and call the fiberglass repair man.  I’ve seen lots of DIY fiberglass repair articles on the web, but this is one I’d like to call the professionals for. I’ve seen plenty of black mold from improper leak repairs and am ready to do this one right.

Now that Heid’s room is painted, the carpet man can come.  Then she can move into her room which will allow Heather to move into her room and all the children will be in their rightful places.  What a happy day that will be!

I used my Christmas money to order curtain fabric for my office and Heidi’s room.  Heidi went with white bridal illusion covered in silver glitter.  I took a risk on aqua blue and white chevron.  I saved some money by salvaging some finials off a curtain rod that was too short.  I bought a $3 electrical conduit pipe that just happens to fit and will spray paint everything white–tomorrow.  Because even though It’s January in Kansas City, the weatherman thinks it will be 60 degrees tomorrow!

That Chevron has me sitting on pins.  I love it–right now. Is this something super trendy that I will tire of quickly?  It’s an expensive enough purchase that I’ll have to live with it for awhile.  So now that I hit “complete purchase” I’ve decided to love it no matter what.

I had the same concerns about my black and white damask curtains that I made for my living room 3 years ago.  Thankfully I live in the midwest where it takes years for the trends to hit, so they’ve stayed in fashion this whole time.

And then I think about the poor orphans in Africa and wonder why I care so much whether my curtains are fashionable.  I’ve spent years not caring so much and have found that when I take the time to choose my purchases carefully for their beauty as well as functionality–it makes a difference how the people in my home feel.  So I think I will pray that all people have their needs so met that they can waste a thought on whether something is lovely or not.

Protein Cookie Dough Balls

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I love to eat cookie dough.  I’m not afraid of raw eggs, but if you are–just leave them out of your favorite recipe and you’ll have edible dough.  The drawback is there’s tons of calories in the form of fat and sugar and very little protein or vitamins.

I recently became aware of sugar free recipes for cookie dough meant to be eaten raw that includes protein powder.  Several of them called for grinding dates into a paste–but dates aren’t currently in my pantry.  So I tried this variation made with pumpkin puree instead.  It had good flavor but tasted pretty “light” not rich and creamy like real cookie dough.

Here’s the recipe as pictured above:

1/4 cup pumpkin puree

2 Tablespoons peanut butter

1 scoop Bluebonnet French Vanilla Protein powder (Sold at amazon this is just whey and stevia.)

1 packet purevia, stevia sweetener

2 Tablespoons quick oats

2 Tablespoons coconut flour

2 Tablespoons mini chocolate chips

Combine all except the chocolate chips.  Stir until the coconut flour absorbs the moisture and the mixture forms a light and airy dough.  Fold in teh chocolate chips.  Form into 8 balls.  2 balls = 149 calories; 12 g carbs (3 fiber); 10 g protein; 7 g fat

I’ve got PB2 (powdered peanut butter with the oils pressed out) in my amazon shopping cart.  I’d like to try this recipe again substituting PB2 for the peanut butter and part of the oats.  I’m trying to get the overall calories down and protein up while also making the balls slightly denser to taste more like real cookie dough.  So far these little balls are a tasty treat..but can they get better?

Strawberry Spinach Salad

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Here’s my lunch today–and it was even tastier than it looks.  And talk about healthy!

Strawberry Spinach Salad–Serves 1

2 cups spinach leaves

4 oz sliced fresh strawberries

4 oz grilled chicken breast, sliced (I throw mine on the Foreman grill)

12 almonds, chopped, and toasted in the microwave on high for 1 minute

2 Tablespoons (1 oz) Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette Dressing

Layer all ingredients on a plate and eat right away.

A Yummy Green Smoothie

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Yes, I’m drinking my smoothie from a Cottage Cheese carton.  All of our glasses are too small to hold an entire smoothie, so this was my solution ;p.

I found this recipe via pinterest and traveled to the blog to read more–aak and now I can’t find it!  I’ll update with the link as soon as I can.

Her recipe was pretty good, but I made a slight change to help it be colder and thicker.

1 small banana, sliced and frozen

1/2 cup skim milk

1/2 cup Greek yogurt

1 tablespoon peanut butter

4 cups fresh spinach

1/2 cup ice

Blend all until smooth.  Drink right away :).  This was the first green smoothie I had that I liked!  The banana and peanut butter covered the green taste really well. To save costs I bought my spinach in a huge bag from Costco.  It has 3 produce servings for the Fit Yummy Mummy Plan which really helps towards the 10 a day goal.