Tag: funwithfood

Taste Testing Tuesday #50 Zucchini Bread

(Wow!!! We’ve shared 50 Taste Testing Tuesday’s with you!) If you live in the country and have a garden, you probably know all about zucchini bread. Maybe you buy zucchini squash at your local farmer’s market or grocery store. Recipes are all over the internet of things you can make with zucchini. My favorite thing to make is Zucchini Bread which, if you have never had it, is a sweet quick bread. Our family loves several kinds of zucchini bread and so I make a lot each summer and freeze loaves for the winter. For today’s taste test, we’ll look at some types of zucchini bread that we like.

#1.) Zucchini bread. The original Zucchini bread, the one that all the others came from. (At least I think so. Lol)

#2.) Peanut Butter with Milk Chocolate Chips Zucchini Bread.

#3.) Maple Zucchini Bread (My hubby’s favorite!)

#4.) Pina Colada Zucchini Bread. (My favorite!) With crushed pineapple and coconut flavoring.

#5.) Chocolate Zucchini Bread. Made with cocoa.

#6.) Peanut Butter Zucchini Bread. Think of peanut butter cookies…mmmm!

We took some pieces of each kind of zucchini bread and did a taste test on them. We made a simple chart and recorded what we each thought of each kind of zucchini bread. You can do the same thing. 🙂 A smiley face means “Yum!”, a straight face means “It’s ok.” and a frowning face means “No, thank you!” You can also leave a space on your chart for each person to write in their favorite zucchini bread.

I hope you’ll try some zucchini bread recipes and you will find some that your family can rate #1!! Good luck and have fun…and may your zucchini grow for a long season! 😉

Taste Testing Tuesday #49 – No crusts, please!

“But Mom, I don’t like the crust on my sandwich!” Have you heard that one? I’m guessing a big percentage of moms have! LOTS of kids don’t like the crust on their sandwich. So you can…#1.) Make them eat it anyway, #2.) Cut the crusts off OR #3.) Buy Uncrustables! What is an Uncrustable? A sandwich with no crusts! Brilliant invention, right? What mom isn’t looking for a simpler, more peaceful way to have lunch sometimes?! So for today’s taste test, let’s see what the kiddos think of Uncrustables. (I can’t eat most kinds of bread because of a food allergy, so I couldn’t actually participate in the taste test this week.) I found 3 flavors of Uncrustables at our local grocery store.

#1.) Peanut Butter and Grape Jelly. Mmmm! 🙂

#2.) Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jam. (This would be my favorite!)

#3.) Chocolate flavored Hazelnut Spread.

If you’ve never seen these before, they are in the frozen food section. So are these super tasty? Are they better without the crust? Inquiring minds want to know!! 😉 Which is your favorite? I’d love to hear what your opinion is! Have fun and SMILE, kids, because there are no crusts on these! LOL 🙂

Extra note: After some research online I see that there are more flavors of Uncrustables than I found and some even have meat in them! Also, there are a gazillion youtube videos that show you how to make your own! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #48 – Goldfish Crackers (Bonus games!)

Hi everyone and welcome back for another Taste Testing Tuesday! Today we’ll be tasting Goldfish. Waaaaait a minute!! Do we eat goldfish?? Yuck! Let’s try that again! Today we’ll be tasting Goldfish CRACKERS! Oh, that sounds like a much better idea!! We are testing 4 different flavors of Goldfish crackers today but there are more flavors available. Check your local store to see what they carry.

Let’s look at the 4 flavors we chose to try today.

#1.) Mickey Mouse Special Edition Cheddar.

These are super cool as they have the shapes of goldfish but also the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head.

#2.) Parmesan

These little goldfish are a very light, almost white color. They ARE pretty cute, aren’t they?

#3.) Vanilla Cupcake.

These goldfish are brown in color but oh, so yummy in flavor! Mmm!

#4.) Pizza

Who doesn’t like pizza, right?!

Here we go with our taste testing! Put at least 4 of each flavor in front of each person.

To go along with your taste test, make up a simple chart to record what everyone thinks of each flavor. Something like this works great.

Draw a face in the corresponding box that shows what you think of that flavor. A smiling face means “Yum!”, a straight face means “It’s ok.” and a frowning face means “No, thanks!” Look at the chart in the next picture and you can tell who likes the Vanilla Cupcake Goldfish crackers. 😉

There is also a place on our chart for you to write in which flavor is your favorite. 🙂 If you taste test the special edition Mickey Mouse cheddar goldfish crackers, there is a fun dot-to-dot activity on the back of the package that you can do.

And now for the bonus game! Take a few of each flavor of goldfish crackers and mix them up on a plate. One person closes their eyes and takes 1 goldfish. Be sure someone else sees which type of goldfish they picked up. Now the person eats the goldfish and guesses which flavor it was. How many can you get right?

Whatever flavors of goldfish crackers you decide to try, I hope you have fun doing this taste test! Have fun telling people that you ate goldfish and watch what their reaction is! 😉

Taste Testing Tuesday #46 Salads That Go on Bread or Crackers

It’s Tuesday again! And it’s a HOT Tuesday here! 92 degrees with a heat index of 99 degrees. Whew! Are you ready for some Taste Testing Tuesday fun? Let’s do this!

Today let’s talk about the kind of salads that you eat on a piece of bread or on top of crackers. There are several different kinds but we’ll talk about 3 kinds today that I had ingredients on hand to make.

#1.). Egg salad. There are many ways to make egg salad but I make it using hard boiled eggs, mayonnaise (Miracle Whip), salt and a little onion powder.

#2.) Chicken Salad. Again, lots of ways to make it but I usually make it close to the same way I make the egg salad but I add in some cooked chicken and a little sweet pickle relish. Some people like to add white seedless grapes to chicken salad, just be sure to cut them in pieces first.

#3.) Corned Beef salad. For this salad, just open a can of corned beef, add the mayonnaise, chopped hard boiled eggs, a little onion powder if you like it. Mix it up and spread it on a piece of bread or crackers! Yum!

A few more of these types of salads that I know about or have made at some point would be ham salad, tuna salad, salmon salad, roast beef salad (super yummy!) and probably more that I’m not thinking of at the moment. These types of salads are so nice to eat on hot days like today when you don’t want to turn on the stove or oven. I hope you’ll do a taste test on one or more of these and let me know what you think! 😃

Make Your Own Popsicles

We’re getting some of those warm “dog days” of summer here in Ohio. When I get hot, I like to have something cold to eat or drink. That always reminds me of a recipe my mom used to make for my siblings and me…homemade popsicles! This recipe takes just a few common ingredients: 1 – 3oz. box of Jello gelatin mix (fruit flavor), 1 packet of the same flavor of Kool-Aid drink mix (Unless you are feeling adventurous and want to mix up your flavors!), 3/4 Cup sugar and some water.

Place the Jello powder, Kool-Aid mix and sugar into a large bowl. As you can see from the picture, this time we are making cherry flavored popsicles.

Bring 2 Cups of water to a boil and carefully pour it into the bowl with the Jello mixture. Stir until everything is dissolved.

Now add 2 Cups of cold water and stir again.

You are ready to pour this mixture into whatever forms you are using to make the popsicles. You can use popsicle molds, small paper cups (I recommend using the Dixie 5 oz cups and fill them 2/3’s full) or ice cube trays. (The cups pictured are the 9 oz size because those are the ones I had on hand.)

I filled my popsicle molds first.

I had enough Jello mixture to also fill an ice cube tray and 2 – 9 oz. paper cups about half full.

Place on a flat surface in your freezer for 2-3 hours until the popsicles are frozen. You can place wooden sticks in the cups or ice cube trays after the popsicles are partly frozen.

Here is the recipe card that I have the recipe written on.

The number of popsicles you will get from one batch depends on what size containers you use for making your popsicles. Let’s take a look at a finished popsicle! Ta dah! Ready to eat! 🙂

A word of caution: eat these slowly as they feel colder than ice cream and its easy to get a “head freeze” if you eat them too quickly! Looks like someone is enjoying this popsicle! 😉

The popsicles that are made in the ice cube trays are great for adding to a cup of juice to add more flavor and keep your drink cold longer. There are lots of ways to make popsicles but this one is a favorite because it comes from my childhood. Maybe we will look at some other ways to make your own popsicles on a blog post another time. For this time, enjoy your popsicles! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #44 – Ice Cream!

“You scream, I scream, We all scream for ice cream!” Have you heard that saying before? One tidbit I read said it came from the original “I-Scream Bar” or what later became known as the Eskimo Pie. Be that as it may, who is ready to taste test some ice cream?! Ooooo, ME, of course! There are soooooo many combinations when it comes to ice cream and ice cream toppings but for today, we will use Breyer’s vanilla ice cream and try 6 different toppings on it. Ready? Are you drooling? Let’s go!

#1.) We’ll start with plain vanilla ice cream. Maybe you don’t need anything else on your ice cream! Maybe you prefer it just as it is. 🙂

#2.) Hershey’s Chocolate syrup. Mmm! When I eat vanilla ice cream with Hershey’s chocolate syrup, it takes me back to when I was a little girl and I stayed at my grandparents house overnight. Grandma would often give us vanilla ice cream with Hershey’s chocolate syrup drizzled over it for a snack before bed. So yummy!

#3.) Caramel syrup. My husband is a big fan of caramel syrup.

#4.) Strawberry topping or fresh strawberries. We used to eat vanilla ice cream this way at my other set of grandparents. 😉

#5.) Chopped up Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Ooohhh, this is soooo good! (Ok, yep, this one wins first place for me!) Who can resist peanut butter covered in milk chocolate?!

#6.) Sprinkles!! Remember sprinkles make everything better, right?! 😉

#7.) Banana Split. In case you never had one, a banana split has pieces of bananas on the bottom, topped with ice cream and 2 or 3 toppings with nuts and whip cream. This one has bananas, vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, strawberry topping and chopped roasted pecans. Yuuuuummmm! (Well, maybe THIS one is my favorite?)

Of course, there are many, many more ways to eat vanilla ice cream! How do you usually eat it? Which way is your favorite? Did you NOT like any of these toppings? I liked them ALL! (Which could be why my clothes are fitting tighter than they were! Oops!) I hope you’ll have an ice cream taste testing party at your house! 🙂

Simple Fun For Lunch

Do you and your kids get tired of the same boring things to eat for lunch? Here’s a simple fun idea for snazzing things up a bit. Grab some slices of cheese and a few small cookie cutters…and your kids favorite lunch sandwich.

Start with a couple slices of cheese…

Use a few small cookie cutters to cut shapes out of the cheese slices.

Arrange the cheese cut-outs on a small plate.

Take the sandwich a use a knife to cut it into shapes too. I placed a star cookie cutter on the sandwich and used the knife to cut around the outside edges of the cookie cutter. Ta dah! You have a star sandwich for lunch instead of a plain boring one. 😉

That’s a fun way to change things up a bit and make life more interesting! Be sure to save the leftover bits of cheese for another use like on top of a salad. Mom or Dad can eat the leftover bits of sandwich, right? 😉

Letting the kids use the cookie cutters will make it even more fun! 😉 I wanted to use slices of watermelon to cut out some fruit shapes, but we didn’t have any watermelon on hand. Maybe you can try that and let me know how it goes! Here’s to a yummy fun lunchtime!

Taste Testing Tuesday #43 – Jello Gelatin

Hello again! Are you ready to take on another Taste Testing Tuesday? One thing that lots of kids love to eat is Jello brand gelatin! It’s easy to make and fun to watch it jiggle and wiggle on your spoon. 😉 But what flavor tastes the best? Hmm…we need to have a taste test! Here are a few flavors I found in our local grocery store:

#1.) Strawberry

#2.) Black Cherry

#3.) Orange

#4.) Lemon-Lime

Those are some of the pre-made Jello cups, but of course, it also comes in a powdered form in a box. And there are LOTS of flavors!! Let’s see how many more we can name…Cherry, Lime, Raspberry, Apricot, Lemon, Island Pineapple, Berry Blue, Grape, Watermelon, Mango, Strawberry Banana, Cranberry, Peach…WOW! Everyone must be able to find at least ONE flavor they like, right?! So what flavors will you use for your taste test? And which flavor will win the award of being your favorite?

What if you like LOTS of flavors of Jello? Welllll, maybe you could help a grown up make this awesome Jello dessert! Look how many flavors it has!!

7-Layer Gelatin Salad

Ooohhh that looks soooo yummy! If you’d like to make it, just follow this link to the recipe:

7-Layer Gelatin Salad

Now I want to go eat some Jello! How about you? 🙂 Have fun taste testing Jello!

Taste Testing Tuesday #41 – Yogurt Drinks

Happy Tuesday to you! It’s another Tuesday for having fun doing a taste test! Today we are looking at some Chobani Greek Yogurt drinks. Our local store only had 3 flavors today so that’s what we had to use for our taste test.

If your kids are so busy playing that they don’t take time to sit down and eat, this might be a good suggestion for a way to get a little more goodness in them. Shake it up, open it, stick a straw in and down the hatch it goes! 😉 Let’s look at our flavors…

#1.) Mixed Berry. This one has blueberries, raspberries and blackberries in it. It’s a cool light purple color. 😉

#2.) Pina Colada is a pineapple coconut flavored drink with pineapple juice in it. It’s a pretty yellow color when you pour it in a cup.

#3.) Peach. As you might expect, this one has peach puree in it and is a nice light orange color.

I believe Chobani also makes their Greek yogurt drinks in other flavors such as Mango, Strawberry Banana, and Cherry Vanilla. Maybe you can find these flavors in your local store. Ok, does everyone have a little taste of each flavor in a cup now? Let the taste testing begin! 🙂 Do you like the Greek yogurt drink? Which flavor is the best? Of these 3 flavors I would say I like the Peach the best, then the Pina Colada and lastly the Mixed Berry. My favorite one is the Cherry Vanilla, so I hope you can find that one and give it a try!

Happy Taste Testing Tuesday!! 🙂