Passion Fruit Dressing and an OXO Giveaway!

I only like salad if I have some real ingredients to put in, like roasted tomatoes, hearts of palm, steak strips, or Pammy’s Dressing.

My friend Pam has a salad on her table every night, and more often than not it’s dressed with her special homemade sauce. I’d drink the stuff if no one was looking.

I really dislike store bought dressing. I keep one bottle in my fridge for emergencies, but generally I’d prefer to pour it down the sink than in my salad bowl. I try to pilfer Pam’s dressing when I can but now I finally can make a bottle of my own. The last time I made it I didn’t have orange juice concentrate, so I improvised with some Lilikoi. I went to salad dressing heaven.

Thanks to OXO, I now have a salad dressing shaker in the fridge at all times.

My favorite, truly functional features:

1) Flip top lid, no drips with a tight seal. Plus a spout that ensures you don’t have salad dressing dripping over the side.

2) Liquid measurement tick marks

3) Screw top, so you can clean it easily.

I love it. And now you can have one too.

OXO sent me an extra salad dressing shaker so I can pass it on to you.

All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me about your favorite salad or dressing ingredient(s). If you have a link to a recipe, I’m always looking for inspiration!

You can get up to two extra entries for tweeting and/or following this blog.

Passionfruit Dressing (Lilikoi Dressing) (slightly adapted from Pammy’s recipe)

• 2/3 Cup olive oil
• scant 1/4 Cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 tsp no salt seasoning
• salt to taste
• 3 Tbsp lilikoi puree
• 1/2 tsp honey or more to taste (I like mine sweeter)
• 1 Tbsp water
• pinch of dried parsley
• 2 Tbsp dijon mustard (not Grey Poupon)
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced

1. Whisk or shake all ingredients together until uniform. You may need to shake again before serving.
2. Tip: If your dressing gets very cold, it may separate or be difficult to pour. Wait until it warms to room temperature again, or put it in the microwave for a few seconds and shake.

OXO sent me this product for free. All opinions are my own.

Chocolate Avocado Pops

You probably wouldn’t eat this:
Even if I told you that the avocado was a local, buttery variety. And the cacao nibs added the most lovely mouth-feel.

But you would eat this popsicle.

You know how my 4-year-old can’t keep her fingers out of the bowl?

Guess who was ecstatic when I opened up a can of sweetened condensed milk.

Guess who just suspiciously eyed the avocado I cut into.

Guess who said, “That would be disgusting, if you put avocado into my popsicle.”

Guess who ate two popsicles in two gulps, and then asked for another.
I said, “No, because I’m going to eat the rest save the rest for later. but you can have a superfood smoothie popsicle, if you like.”

And she did.

I’m currently working on a kale/onion popsicle. Think she’d go for it?

Mozely loved it too.
No, I’m not that bad. He wanted it though. We’ll save sweetened condensed milk for when he’s 5 months.

(you know I’m kidding, right? Ok.)

The only bad thing about this was that one of my zoku quick pop sticks broke (say that 5x fast). Sad. So so so sad. I won’t even get to eat that one. I looked on their website and they said something about not making high fat pops, too soft, blah blah blah.

Chocolate Avocado Popsicles
(recipe inspired by avocado fudgesicles seen at The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen, except not nearly as good for you, and Emme’s avocado smoothie)
The avocado helps create a fudgesicle quality—that crunchy creamy chew. It’s hard to duplicate usually. I had a hard time drinking this straight, but popsicle wise it’s killer.

• 3/4 Cup fresh avocado
• 2 Tbsp raw cacao nibs
• 4 Tbsp sweetened condensed milk
• 1 Cup milk*

1. Blend all together until nibs are very very small and the liquid is thick but pourable. My measurements here are rough (I can’t tell you how hard it is to measure sweetened condensed milk) and you will still get good results if you just eyeball it.
2. Pour into a popsicle mold and freeze. Highly recommend the zoku, despite the stick breaking.

Makes about 7 popsicles.
*I think that almond milk would be a good substitute if you are avoiding milk. Use brown rice syrup instead of sweetened condensed milk because it has a similar sticky/thick quality.

Kellog’s Eggo Real Fruit Pizza

I have to admit. I really love it when a box that says “dry ice” on it shows up at my house.

I received 2 Kellog’s Eggo Real Fruit Pizzas to taste from Foodbuzz recently and it was a real production opening up the box and freaking out when my daughter almost touched the dry ice with her bare hands. Luckily no one’s fingers got burned off. ‘Cause I’m such a good mother. I put the fear of God into her about touching dry ice, which is a material that I’m sure makes no sense to a 4-year-old.

We popped the fruit pizzas into the microwave (they come with those nifty “crisping” trays that you see with mini frozen pizzas) and sat down to a snack. These have a wheat crust, topped with flavored yogurt, topped with granola, topped with berries. There’s a mixed berry flavor and a strawberry flavor.

I think the mixed berry flavor comes off better, as I think those berries aren’t totally ruined by being frozen, like strawberries are. Strawberries kind of turn into a mushy blandness and they’re really only good for smoothies when they’re frozen. I appreciated that this product was not too sweet. I was expecting pop tart candy pizza, but it seemed more like real food. (Hey, I would eat pop tart pizza. Totally.)

Amaya actually only liked the strawberry flavor. She turned her nose up at the mixed berry. I tried to get her to explain why, but she had no reason. I think her preference was only about color (pink vs. purple—I guess pink wins). She ate about half a pizza. But she’s 4. I think this is not enough for me for breakfast. Maybe because I’m really into breakfast. The person I think this product would appeal to the most is a teenager. I’m a teacher and I always see teenagers with trendy instant food products. One of their favorite foods right now (at my school) are those Smucker’s PB & J sandwiches. Yes. Those ones that are frozen, circular, and crustless. I think those are a major abomination to PB & J and I once had a bet with my student that I could actually make a better PB & J and I was dumb enough to bring sandwiches to school just to prove my point. So, yes, I think they would love Eggo Real Fruit Pizzas. Especially because teenagers are kind of anti-breakfast (they think it’s cool to say, “I’m not hungry” after not eating breakfast or lunch), so they have to be appealed to by eating some name brand promise of sweetness. But it’s way better than a Monster, which is what most of my students have for breakfast.

Bottom line: Great for breakfast avoiders like teenagers. Could use more fruit on top. Not too sweet and much better than a pop tart.

Hands Up for Summer!

The Zoku quick pop maker came in the mail last Thursday, and I’ve been concocting all sorts of popsicle recipes in my head since I stuck the contraption in the freezer.

I think I mentioned last Christmas that I would love one of these, and someone out there heard me just in time for summer.

I was trying to think of refreshing, cool, and anything to get me clear of my overheated pregnant body.

The Zoku makes popsicles in about 7 minutes. I’m really not much of a do-ahead person, as in, I can’t get myself to stick juice in the freezer the night before I might need a popsicle. I want a popsicle. And I want it NOW. So I’ll go out and buy a popsicle before I think ahead for one.

The magic is in the base. You keep the base of the popsicle maker in the freezer. In the directions it even says, after you make your popsicles, just put it back in the freezer. No need to wash it after every use. YES! My kind of contraption. So it’s basically frozen all the time and you can make popsicles every day. 9 of them, actually (3 at a time).

You really need a pouring type of container because you want to get it right in the mold instead of all over the top like Messy Me.

The other ones we were more careful with. It takes very very little liquid to make these popsicles. Then wait 7 minutes or so until it’s frozen. This part was torturous. Seriously.

With the “super tool”, the popsicle slides out easily! Really. Easy as pie. It felt like some kind of trick. That’s my problem with popsicles. Half the time you can’t get them out of their molds. Not these. Plus they look like professional popsicles. Awesome.

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Although I received the Zoku for free, I was not paid or required to give any endorsement. (you can buy it HERE.) But I give it 2 hands up for summer. The kids enjoyed our bounty, and I am already planning my next popsicle recipe.  My fav is the watermelon ginger, but it may just be a pregnancy thing.

Watermelon Ginger Popsicles

• 1 C watermelon
• 1 T sugar
• juice of 1/2 lime
• 1 tsp fine-grated ginger (I used a rasp grater and frozen ginger)
• 1/3 C water

Blend up the ingredients and chill before pouring into popsicle molds.

Strawberry Orange Popsicles

• 5 frozen strawberries
• 1/2 C water
• 2 T sugar
• 2 T orange juice concentrate

Blend up the ingredients and chill before pouring into popsicle molds.

Mango Lassi Popsicles

• 1/2 C greek yogurt (or thick plain yogurt if you don’t have)
• 2 T sugar
• 1/3 C milk
• 1 C frozen mango
• 1/4 tsp kewda water (optional)

Blend up the ingredients and chill before pouring into popsicle molds.

Let's Talk Sippy Cups

I post a lot about my 4 year old but nothing about my 7 month old. It's about time she got some attention, specially now that she's participating in meal time with us and loving it. She still nurses plenty and has just recently been introduced to solid foods, more about that later.

Today, I want to introduce you to the Tilty. Over a year ago I received 2 packages of the Tilty cup to review and giveaway. By then my son was already drinking from cups without lids but enjoyed using the Tilty, mainly at night when he was having milk during bedtime stories. I was pregnant and saved a package of Tilty cups because I was in love with their design.

I introduced the Tilty to my daughter a month ago and on her third time she could practically use it by herself. I'm in love with these cups. They're definitely the easiest for babies to use and by far the easiest for parents to clean. Not to mention how inexpensive they are.

What's your favorite sippy cup? Do tell!