Friday, February 22, 2013

Homemade Strawberry Fruit Snacks

I've been wanting to make my own fruit snacks for a while now, and finally did. I honestly don't know what took me so long-- they were incredibly easy to make & taste delicious! 

As a family, we have started a new food venture based primarily on the Paleo diet. I'm just sick of everything we buy at the grocery store containing a bunch of unnecessary additives and ingredients which were never meant to be put into, nor digested by, the human body. I could turn this into a twenty page rant about our food market and the food industry, but alas, I shall just continue to complain and interject my opinions whenever I see fit. (Let me know if you want more info about the Paleo diet and/or if you would like to hear my food tirades and I will gladly oblige.)

So the fruit snacks I usually buy have so many unnecessary ingredients it blows my mind. The fruit snacks I made have four. Fricken. Four. Ingredients.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups Strawberries (can be fresh, frozen or any other type of berry)
1/2 cup Lemon Juice (can be fresh, or from a bottle)
2 tbs Honey
1/2 cup Gelatin


Directions:
Heat lemon juice and strawberries on medium low heat until the strawberries are soft (note: frozen fruit also works in this recipe). Then puree fruit in a blender and let sit until cool (about 5 mins). Whisk in honey & gelatin, but whisk gelatin in small amounts to avoid clumping. Pour into silicone mold (silicone ice cube molds would make fun shapes) or pour into baking dish lined with parchment paper. Let setup in refrigerator for about 2 hours. Remove from mold and cut into fun shapes/squares/use your imagination. 

Pictorial process:
 


Friday, February 8, 2013

Hiatus

So to say I have taken a blogging hiatus is somewhat of an understatement. It all started when our computer decided to have an early life meltdown. The flucking thing is only three years old. We are fortunate enough to have many other computer like gadgets, thus enabling us to be somewhat lazy about fixing the computer. So, instead of fixing the thing, we put it off. Then put it off some more. 

Anywhooo, we basically let our computer sit and collect dust, and blogging from the iPad is just plain difficult, so with all these excellent excuses adding up, I just didn't blog (some other fun stuff happened, but I'll get to that in a quick second). Well, flash back to a couple weeks ago, we took our iMac to the Apple store and they fixed it for free... for free! Nice, we waited for no reason. 

It was a nice break though, but I'm definitely ready to get my blog game on again! 

As for the fun other stuff that played a role in my blogging hiatus; we found out we are expecting baby #2!! Pretty cool right? Totally. I'm now 21 weeks (about 5 months for all those 'have-yet-to-make-a-baby-people-who-don't-talk-about-babys-growth-in-weeks'), but those first three months were brutal and I was a HUGE lazy sloth. I didn't wanna blog. I didn't wanna be conscious most of the time. It was fantastic. You shoulda seen my house. 

Other questionably fun stuff: we decided to sell our house (still trying to sell it), we decided to change our eating habits and are practicing a Paleo based diet (recipes to come) our tiny human turned 4, annnnnd I dyed my hair purple-- I'm a mermaid now!

So, now I'm gonna post a bunch of awesome pics from what has happened over the past few months and begin blogging again, yay! 

Ready, go!

October/ Halloween time:



Olins 4th Birthday/ November:



December/ Christmas time/ January/ Feburary: