A Special Valentines Drink

I'll come right out and say it. I'm not a huge fan of Valentines Day. I kind of attribute it to many years of being boyfriend-less and seeing other girls with flowers, balloons, etc. and I had nothing. It's okay, I know it's a petty reason, but tell me you're not still holding on to issues like that of some sort from high school. ;) Thankfully the husband isn't really a big fan of it either, so we've never made a big deal out of it. Actually when we first met it was a few weeks before V-Day, and he randomly said one night, "So, what are you doing next Wednesday?" My response--not realizing what day that was--was something along the lines of, "Probably working late, maybe having some wine when I get home." You know, because my roommate at the time and her boyfriend would be there being all lovey-dovey. So we've never made a big deal out of it. But now that I have little boys, I really want to teach them that they should make a big deal out of it, so I'm trying to mend my ways. This year I planned a bunch of secret stuff to do for them while they were both at school. I dropped off Boy #2 at preschool and headed to the dollar store for some decorations. Note to self: next year get them ahead of time because there's not a whole lot left at the dollar store on Valentines Day. But I made do. I wanted to give my boys a fancy, fun snack when they got home from school and I had seen this on Pinterest. They rarely get soda--especially one whose main ingredients are HFCS, corn syrup, sugar, and red dye #40--so I knew they'd freakin' flip for this. It probably helped I also bought them each a bag of Cheetos.

A Special Valentines Drink
Source: Adapted from Sweet Cheeks Tasty Treats

Strawberry sherbet
Red Fanta (I think it's strawberry flavor?)
Whipped cream
Valentine sprinkles

In a tall glass (or short glass if you want a little drink), place one or two scoops strawberry sherbet. Slowly pour soda over the sherbet. Top with a swirl of whipped cream and Valentine sprinkles.

*****

Easy peasy! The original recipe called for raspberry sherbet and raspberry ginger ale, but I couldn't find those at my store, so I went the strawberry route. Actually I think it was a strawberry sorbet that I got, if you want to be all fancy. Want to know one of my pet peeves? When people say sherBERT instead of sherBET. There's no "r" in the word! It drives me freakin' nuts and no one believes me when I complain about it that they're pronouncing it wrong. So I've learned to keep my mouth shut about it.

Anyway, my boys loved this. I made one for myself, too, and it was quite tasty. This could easily be adapted to any holiday, just change the color of your ingredients. If I can figure a non-Mountain Dew green soda I may make it again for St. Patrick's Day using lime sherbet. I guess I could do Sprite and that would work.

Frosty Fruit Smoothie

We were in desperate need of a new blender. The one we had we had received as a wedding present, and it was one of those smoothie maker ones with the spout on it, but the spout would always get clogged up or it would leak. I was just tired of it. So the boy got me a really nice new blender for my birthday. Isn't he sweet? Then it happened that we were at my friend Jessica's for a breakfast party last week, and she has an orange tree in her backyard that is producing copious amounts of oranges this year. So she gave us a bag to take home. I told the boy we could make smoothies out of some of them, so I went about looking for a recipe. I found this one on RecipeZaar.com, and thought it would be a good one to try, but I changed it up a bit.

Frosty Fruit Smoothie

1 cup orange juice, chilled
1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
1 medium banana, cut into chunks
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup small ice cube or crushed ice

In a blender, combine fruit juice and yogurt; add banana and vanilla. Add ice cubes, Cover and blend until nearly smooth.

*****

I ended up using two bananas and probably slightly more juice and yogurt so I could get two smoothies out of it. The boy and I both really liked these! The original recipe called for milk instead of yogurt, but I liked the idea of the yogurt better. Plus Greek yogurt is so yummy.

The downside of this? Now every day the boy asks if we can make smoothies! Not that it's a bad thing necessarily, just more work for a snack than I usually like to do. :) But we both really liked the smoothies, and I like controling what's in the snacks/treats/drinks we have.

My cool retro juicer. It was my grandma's.


Hello, fresh squeezed orange juice. Thanks Jessica and Dashel for sharing your oranges with us!


Mmmmm...smoothie!!


I don't know why it didn't occur to me to take a picture of everything in the blender. Oops!

Mango Banana Daiquiris

Quite awhile ago, my friend Jen B. told me about a blogging group that makes recipes from the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks called Barefoot Bloggers. If you read my blog regularly, you know that I heart Ina Garten, so I was very excited to find this group and be accepted as a member!

Each month, two members each choose a recipe from one of the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks and all the members of the group make those two recipes. I missed the actual date this was supposed to be done, but I think as long as I post by the end of the month I'm still allowed in the group. ;)

The first recipe for August was Mango Banana Daiquiris, chosen by Veronica of Supermarket Serenade. The husband is from New Orleans, and if you've ever been to New Orleans you've probably seen (or gone through) a drive through daiquiri stand (apparently if there's a straw it's considered an open container but no straw is fine). He is always game for trying some kind of daiquiri. I thought this would be a great accompaniment to our grilled pizzas tonight (which actually might end up being baked in the oven instead of grilled because it's looking a bit stormy outside).

Mango Banana Daiquiris
serves 4 (or 2 if you're at my house!)

2 cups chopped ripe mango (1 to 2 mangos, peeled and seeded)
1 ripe banana, chopped
1/2 cup fresh squeezed lime juice (4 limes)
1/4 cup sugar syrup*
1 1/4 cups dark rum, such as Mount Gay
Mango slices, for serving

Place the mango, banana, lime juice, sugar syrup, and rum in a blender and process until smooth. Add 2 cups of ice and process again until smooth and thick. Serve ice-cold in highball glasses with the mango slices.

*To make simple syrup, heat 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water in a small saucepan until the sugar dissolves. Chill.

*****

Mmmmmm...I love me a good fruity frozen drink. I hate cutting up mangoes, so I took the easy way out and bought a bag of frozen mango chunks at Trader Joe's. My bananas aren't super ripe, but I'm not too concerned about it. Heck, it may give me a reason to try these again soon. ;)

*****

You know what I just saw? This is my 600th post! How exciting!!

It's Saturday night now and the husband and I just finished off ANOTHER batch of these bad boys. We had two batches last night. I think we've found our summer go-to drink (fantastic, now that it's late August)! These are so super yummy. When I said my bananas weren't that ripe--wow, that was the understatement of the year. They were still green and difficult to peel. I think with ripe bananas, these would be even better. I added a little more simple syrup to try and compensate for the lack of extra sweetness ripe bananas would have added to it. I found the first batch to be too limey (which may have been because I just haphazardly squeezed in juice from four limes instead of measuring it out), and we left the lime juice out of the second batch. Now, whether they were really better without the lime juice or if it was just because we were on batch #2, I'm not sure. The husband wanted to add more rum, and I tried to convince him to just try them as they were, but he insisted that it needed another shot. He added one to his and then said it was too much rum. He obviously doesn't know to trust Ina!! Although, I did add 1-1/2 cups rum instead of 1-1/4, so I guess technically I did add extra but not once they were done.

Ina, once again you've done me right!!!!

Floating Island Punch

Last one! I guess all these posts today make up for the fact that tomorrow I don't have to make dinner. We're going to my aunt's for my cousin's birthday dinner, and my grandma is making chicken and noodles. Yum!

This punch was served at my baby shower back in October and my friend Danielle's shower in November. I think Jen found the recipe for it on allrecipes.com. Jen A. requested it specifically, and who am I to turn down a pregnant woman's request? I know better than that! ;) Just kidding, I would have chosen this one anyway because it's just so darn tasty.

Floating Island Punch

Ingredients:
2 cups water
2 cups white sugar
1 (12 fluid ounce) can frozen lemonade concentrate
1 (12 fluid ounce) can frozen orange juice concentrate
1 pint orange sherbet
1 liter ginger ale
1 liter carbonated water
1 (4 ounce) jar maraschino cherries
1 orange, sliced in rounds
4 cups ice

Directions:
Bring water to a boil. Add the sugar and boil until it becomes a syrup. Let cool.

In a punch bowl combine lemonade, orange juice, ginger ale, and carbonated water. Mix in the sugar syrup. Add ice and sherbet. Just before serving add cherries and cherry juice and float orange slices on top.

*****

Believe it or not, this was my first time making a simple syrup. I didn't read the directions first and poured the sugar in the saucepan then added water and turned on the burner. It turned out fine. And it really was super simple. I let it boil for 5-7 minutes or so. I couldn't remember what size maraschino cherries the recipe called for when I was grocery shopping, so the jar I got was 16 ounces. Jen B. was helping me make it this morning and dumped the whole thing in, so ours might have been a tad bit sweeter than it usually is. But it was still good. Also, I didn't put the ice in the punchbowl--I had it in an ice bucket because I didn't want the punch to get watered down as the ice melted. Plus I figured the sherbet would keep it cold, and everything else had come straight out of the fridge.