Carrot Fries? I don't know.

I'm on the hunt for vegetables that can replace fries. It's not easy.

I saw a recipe on Weight Watchers  (or maybe Hungry Girl) for carrot fries. So, I made them.

Now, let me be honest.. I don't like cooked carrots. But, I thought I'd try. You never know.

Preparing the carrots took longer than they should as the girls, including my niece were starving from swimming and needed a snack.  So they chomped on some raw carrots.

We started with large carrots, washed and peeled them. 

Then as directed, I cut them into strips, put some coarse salt on them and baked at 425 (I think..) for a while. 

To be honest, I wasn't impressed. But my family liked them. This was all that was left. 

I think next time, I am going to use a mandolin and cut them into paper thin rounds and bake them like that and make carrot chips.  I think they would crisp better.

I'll keep you posted :)



Kid-Sized and Budget Friendly Jello

This may be a total no-brainer for you, but given that our house is new to Jello, I thought I'd tell you my new trick :)

So why is Jello new to us? Well, all of the prepackaged jello's have red dye #40 in them. And up until I found this box of berry blue, every other box had it too. And since Maddie's allergic to red 40, jello was off limits in our house.

Until Kylie had her tonsils out. She had jello at the hospital and loved it.  So we bought the prepackaged stuff and Maddie steered clear of the jello and the sticky fingers.

Then I found berry blue at HEB and were thrilled! And to be honest, I was glad to find the large box because the prepackaged stuff is super expensive! I can't believe how much they charge for basically tinted water!

HEB (our grocery store) had 4 boxes. I bought them all.

So as I was getting ready to make the jello, I knew that I didn't want a large vat of jello that would end up being only half eaten, that would be contaminated by little fingers and sick flu germs. So I went with single serve jellos. 

We have tons of the the 3oz plastic cups and they were the PERFECT portion sizes!

You can see the cups of jello in the fridge. Notice that I tried to use our silicone ice molds. That was a total bust. But hey, you win some and you lose some.

And here are my sweet sick girls. Little Berry Blue Jello cups make the flu seem not so bad.

Hey, next time you go down the baking aisle at your store, see if you can find us some new flavors of jello. No RED DYE #40 please.

Maddie Makes Her Favorite Casserole for Dinner!

Maddie made her favorite casserole the other night for dinner. She did a great job and and dinner was rather tasty! The recipe follows.  If I already gave it to you.. sorry. 

Maddie's Favorite Recipe

1. Brown 1 pound ground meat.
2. Layer a bag of uncooked egg noodles in bottom of a casserole pan.
3. Spread the cooked and drained meat on top of noodles.
4. Open up 2 cans of navy beans, 2 cans of black-eyed peas and 2 cans of corn and pour them on the casserole.  DO NOT DRAIN!!
5. Use about a 1/2 can of water and pour over top of casserole.
6. Cover with foil, place on a pan to catch any bubbling and cook at 350 degrees for one hour.
7. Enjoy.  Doug and I use salsa on top!

All my girls eat this better than most any other meal we make!



Fun Food for Kids!

So one of my good friends from college, Megan has a blog that I love to read and she posted a fun food for her kids the other day that I knew I had to try. She calls them Spaghetti dogs (click here for her link).

Here are the results!

While the girls didn't clean their plates, they did have a great time pulling the spaghetti out of the hotdog. They each ate some of the hotdog and all of the spaghetti. I think next time I might do this with meatballs. My girls LOVE meatballs and this would be a lot of fun!

So if you have kids at home, give it a try! It is a quick and easy and fun meal.