#iPPP a la Girl Scouts

Back for #iPPP and it hasn't even been a whole year since my last visit!  Say what?  Only two weeks?  Call Guinness!

Life's been busy, busy, but last weekend, busy also meant tasty.  My sweet girl was working on her Snacks badge for Brownies (Girl Scouts) and got crackin' in the kitchen, creating a sweet treat and a smoothie.

Saturday night, for dessert, she made yogurt strawberry parfaits, layering greek yogurt mixed with a li'l honey, sliced strawberries, and granola.

And while the first set of parfaits were made gluten free, using Udi's vanilla granola, she needed to go one step further for her brother, who can't have dairy,  to join in the sweet treat fun and swapped out the greek yogurt for almond yogurt creating a GFCF parfait delight.  Looks nearly the same, eh?

Can I share the most random and yet helpful thing I learned over the weekend?  Thanks to friend Jenn visiting, I finally learned how to spell dessert and not get it mixed up with desert!  Dessert is spelled with two 's's because you want more and desert with only one 's' because you supposedly want less (since I'm not a fan of the heat, this totally works for me).  Told ya it was random...but, it will save me when spell check isn't nearby!

On Sunday, she blended up a smoothie, using frozen organic blueberries, frozen strawberries, frozen mangoes, fresh ripe banana, fresh baby spinach leaves, and coconut water.  We slurped up smoothie and then poured the left over mix into popsicle molds for desert this week.  Delish.

Coming back for an #iPPP visit with

G*Funk*ified & Jumping With My Fingers Crossed & Angela Amman

WW ~ An Apple Tree's Journey

With only a few leaves to speak of, this grafted apple tree was transplanted from my Mom's into our yard over two years ago on June 1st, 2009.

Each one of its six branches will grow a different variety of apples.

It sat quietly in our backyard through 2010, while continuing to grow.

And in 2011, we began to see some action. We saw little pink buds begin to form on her branches.

Those li'l pink buds bloomed into small white apple blossoms.

 

We have these guys to thank.

Can you see him?

 

What we thought for years were weeds (because they grow like crazy, we never planted them, and no matter how many times we take 'em out, they come back), though we now know the little blue flowers my wee girl loves to make me bouquets from are Forget-Me-Nots, have attracted the local bees.

And those bees went to work!

All their pollinating grew us eight apples this year. An unknown wild critter got one. He must have stood on his hind legs to reach it, but we could book the apple eating thief from the teeth mark evidence he left behind.

And then...

 

...we got to pick our very first apple off our apple tree!

It doesn't get any more organic, farm to table, green, easy, or delish that this!  The kidlets shared this one for breakfast the morning we picked it.

And the other six? Their Dad turned that into a GFCF apple pie! While it turned out mighty delish, we're still fine tuning the recipe for that one. Hopefully, I'll have it to share closer to the holidays.

What's growing in your backyard (or on a balcony or inside your house if you are sans yard)?

Linking up with some rockin' awesome Wordful/ish Wednesday peeps!

Seven Clown Circus, Parenting by Dummies, Project Alicia, Live and Love...Out Loud, Angry Julie Monday

Summer Fruit to Beat the Heat

After starting the month of June out with rain, Summer has come screaming in with some serious heat!  I like the sun, I can handle it warm, but when the temps climb to near triple digits, I melt into a puddle o' goo!

But, before I melted, I put all the fruit I had picked up at Whole Foods & Costco (can I just say how much I love that Costco is carrying more organic & even gluten free options these days?!) to work.

I love fruit salad in the summer!  An apple, watermelon, cantaloupe, blackberries, blueberries, and red grapes.  It's just missing strawberries & pineapple.  And, while I'm out of the former, I do have a pineapple just waiting to be cut into, but I'm holding on to that to throw on the barbeque on Saturday.

Everything, except the watermelon, is organic and tastes delish!  Did you see the new Dirty Dozen & Clean 15 for 2011?  It's the produce that sucks up the most pesticides, making it easier to decide where it's most important to invest your pennies in organic fruits and veggies.

What summer foods have been on your menus?  Is it hot where you live?  How are you beating the heat?

I'm off to pour myself an iced coffee and go blow bubbles with my little Princess (who is getting sooo big!).  Hope your day is a smile worthy one! :>