Ice Cream For Breakfast?

Earlier this week, Kate at Cooking During Stolen Moments posted about giving her kids ice cream for breakfast occasionally.  Reading her post, I remembered that I had done a post on the same subject a few years ago on my old blog.  I had moved a draft of it to this blog, waiting for the right time to post it again.  Now seems to be the right time.

Edited on 10/20/10 to current nutritional information per the products' websites.

This morning Kat asked if she could have ice cream for breakfast. At first I told her no and offered her other things, all of which were refused. Then I mentally compared a small bowl of ice cream with a doughnut and decided it couldn't be any worse for her nutritionally. I was right. Here's how a bowl of ice cream compares to some other, more traditional, breakfast foods.

FYI, the information for the doughnut was just a generic Google search. The rest of the figures came straight from the product packaging or product website. The ice cream we had was homemade from a mix and probably nutritionally a little different than store bought or homemade without a mix. I threw in a couple of tablespoons of dry roasted peanuts for a little protein, but those aren't included in the information (much like the syrup isn't included with the waffle's info and the milk isn't included with the cereal).

1/2 cup vanilla ice cream
Calories - 120
Fat - 3 g
Carbs - 21 g
Protein - 3 g
Cholesterol - 10 mg
Sodium - 40 mg
Calcium - 10%

1 glazed donut
Calories - 180
Fat - 8 g
Carbs - 25 g
Protein - 3 g
Cholesterol - 0 mg
Sodium - 250 mg
Calcium - 0%

2 Eggo waffles (1 serving, before adding syrup)
Calories - 190
Fat - 7 g
Carbs - 27 g
Protein - 4 g
Cholesterol - 15 mg
Sodium - 370 mg
Calcium - 10%

1 oz. Honey Nut Cheerios (before adding milk)
Calories - 110
Fat - 1.5 g
Carbs - 22 g
Protein - 2 g
Cholesterol - 0 mg
Sodium - 190 mg
Calcium - 10%

1 Pop-Tart (frosted strawberry)
Calories - 200
Fat - 5 g
Carbs - 38 g
Protein - 2 g
Cholesterol - 0 mg
Sodium - 170 mg
Calcium - 0%

While I don't really consider any of these to be an ideal breakfast, they're foods most of us probably give our kids (or eat ourselves) from time to time. I don't think the ice cream is any worse a choice than any of the others.

I think eating anything for breakfast is better than eating nothing, so I'm not going to worry about a bowl of ice cream now and then.




So, what do you think?  Did ice cream fare better or worse than you expected?  Did the nutritional info here change your mind about serving ice cream for breakfast?  Do you ever serve your family any of the other food items listed here?

Monday Miscellanea

I'm down with a cold today and not feeling like doing anything very physical. It's been a good opportunity for me to catch up on my favorite blogs, explore a few new ones and admittedly, to spend some time playing Farm Town on Facebook. I'm seriously thinking of deleting my Facebook account because I let it suck up too much of my time, and I don't seem to have willpower enough to leave it alone on my own.

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Over the weekend, Shane was able to finish the last of our raised vegetable beds. We may have made a mistake with the beds, but I don't think it will kill us. At least the University of Missouri Extension says it won't kill us. You see, we made the beds from MCA-treated landscaping timbers that we had purchased for a different project. We knew not to use the older CCA-treated timbers for food gardening, but Shane was halfway through this project before either of us thought to research MCA. Ideally, we should have made the beds from cinder blocks or a naturally rot-resistant wood such as redwood. Still, according to MU, the newer types of pressure-treated wood contains no arsenic and show "insignificant movement of compounds to the soil".

I guess this mistake can be filed under live and learn, but I seriously doubt we're going to be in any more danger eating our homegrown produce than we would be eating grocery store produce.

Anyway...here are a couple of shots of our gardens. They are small; two of them are 15' x 3' (interior box measurement) and the other is 15' x 2". Regardless of their size, they should not only provide a good deal of produce for our small family, but should give us a good idea whether we want to expand our gardens next year.

What's in them? Well, we decided to plant either produce that yields abundantly for the space it requires, or produce we know we love. We have green beans, onions, radishes, green leaf lettuce, mixed lettuces, zucchini, cucumbers, rainbow chard, collard greens, green bell peppers, sweet yellow peppers. We also have both Roma and beefsteak tomatoes.

All but one of the seedlings I started indoors transplanted successfully, and most of the seeds I sewed outside are starting to germinate. So far, so good.

If you're wondering, the brick red stuff between the gardens is some kind of artificial turf or track surfacing. Shane is currently working on a large university's sports complex project and he rescued it from a trip to the dumpster and eventually, a landfill.

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Did you notice our pop-up camper in the first garden shot? We moved it from the back of the yard to it's summer parking spot. Very soon, we'll need to set it up and make sure it overwintered well and get it ready to go for our first camping trip on Memorial Day weekend.

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Our school is having Staff Appreciation Week and today was the day for Kindergarten parents to take in goodies if they liked. I made some cupcakes yesterday and sent a dozen of them to school. I didn't feel up to baking from scratch, so I used a mix (strawberry) and some homemade cream cheese frosting I had made up in the fridge from an earlier dessert. I opted for simple decorations for the dozen I sent to school -- just an edging of multi-colored sugar crystals.

Kat decorated the other dozen we kept at home with sugar sprinkled lightly over the top with SweeTart candies added. This idea came straight from the cake mix box, and I thought it might be cloyingly sweet, but the candies actually add a nice tart touch.

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Now that the camper has moved from it's winter parking spot (under our clotheslines) I can begin hanging laundry out again. I've already missed some beautiful laundry days in between all the rainy days we've been having here.

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Saturday morning we went to city-wide garage sales in a neighboring town. For a dime, I brought home this double-sized mug. Filled to the brim, it will hold a pint of hot tea or coffee, but because I'm klutzy, I only fill it with a meager 12 ounces! You can see from my fingers how heavy the full cup is in my left (weaker) hand. That's a lot of coffee or tea to drink in one sitting! But I've already gone through two fill-ups of tea this morning. It gets cool before I'm done, but I don't mind.

Fun With Frosting (aka Holiday Confusion)

Unable to decide if we should celebrate Valentine's Day today
or Friday the 13th yesterday, Kat and I did both.

(This was ready-made Wilton cookie frosting inthe squeeze bottles.
Tastes kind of yucky, but it's fun to play with.)

Snow Day, Birthday, Food Day

Today was a snow day and it was as cold as a witch's...uh, colder than a welldigger's...er...it was really, really cold outside.

It was also my birthday. 45 if you're counting.

Kat and I kept warm by baking today. I made myself a bright, sunny lemon roll-up for my birthday cake. It's kind of like the pumpkin roll I made at Thanksgiving. I used a Pillsbury recipe for the cake, but I changed up the filling to my own liking. I also used one 17 x 12 half-sheet pan instead of the two 13 x 9 pans called for in the recipe. I've posted both recipes below.


Double Lemon Roll-Ups (Pillsbury recipe)

Rolls:
4 eggs
1/2 cup water
1 pkg. Pillsbury lemon cake mix
powdered sugar

Filling:
1 can Pillsbury ready to spread lemon or vanilla frosting
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease two 13 x 9 pans, line bottoms with waxed paper and grease again.

In large bowl, beat eggs until thick and lemon-colored, about 5 minutes; stir in water. Gradually stir in cake mix at low speed; blend well. Pour half of batter into each prepared pan.

Bake at 350°F for 15 to 20 minutes. Generously sprinkle two clean cloths with powdered sugar. Remove cakes from oven and immediately invert onto cloths. Remove pans and peel off paper. Starting from shorter end, roll hot cake and cloth together. Cool 5 to 8 minutes in towel on rack.

In small bowl, combine frosting and cream cheese; beat until smooth. Fold in nuts. Gently unroll warm cakes and spread each with half of frosting mixture; re-roll. Refrigerate immediately. Slice to serve. Store in refrigerator.

Makes 16 servings.


Double Lemon Roll (my version)

Cake:
4 eggs
1/2 cup water
1 lemon cake mix (any brand)

Filling:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
4 Tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
powdered unsweetened lemonade mix (Kool-Aid)

Heat oven to 350°F. Spray bottom and sides of one 17 x 12 half-sheet pan with pan spray, line bottom with parchment paper and spray again.

In large bowl, beat eggs until thick and lemon-colored, about 5 minutes; stir in water. Gradually stir in cake mix at low speed; blend well. Spread batter into prepared pan.

Bake at 350°F for 15 minutes. Generously sprinkle a large clean cloth with powdered sugar. Remove cake from oven and immediately invert onto cloth. Remove pan and peel off paper. Starting from shorter end, roll hot cake and cloth together. Cool 5 to 8 minutes in towel on rack.

In small bowl, combine cream cheese, butter and powdered sugar until smooth, using handheld mixer. Add Kool-Aid powder, 1/8 teaspoon at a time, until flavor is as "bright" as desired (for us, 5/8 teaspoon). Gently unroll warm cakes and spread with filling; re-roll. Refrigerate immediately. Or just set it on top of the freezer in the cold, cold garage for 5 minutes. Slice to serve. Store in refrigerator.

Makes 16 servings.

But that's not all...

Kat and also made vanilla and chocolate spritz cookies (recipes tomorrow, probably).

Then I finally got around to trying Lisa's Baked Ziti recipe along with some garlic toast for supper. Very easy and very good!

Best Burritos Evah!

A while back, LisaJ posted this recipe for Café Rio Chicken Burritos at 24 Hour Menu. I found the same recipe at Kalyn’s Kitchen. We don’t have Café Rio around here, but the recipe sounded good.

Good is an understatement. None of the pictures come close to doing justice. Shane and I agree that these are some of the best burritos we’ve ever tasted. Not just homemade burritos. Not just chicken burritos. They may be the best burritos we’ve had of any kind, anywhere.

With this recipe, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Having never tried a Café Rio chicken burrito, we weren’t sure if the rice was supposed to go IN the burrito or not, but we put it in ours. The chicken is good, but if you let it sit in the fridge overnight, it’s even better. And the sauce is amazing. Put all three together in a flour tortilla, with a little cheese, lettuce, tomato and black olives (my additions), and the results are unbelievable.

I’ll not post the recipe, since it’s already linked twice. Believe me, it’s worth clicking through to get it. I tried to follow the recipe exactly (I really did this time), but I made two changes: Instead of Kraft Zesty Italian dressing, I prepared one packet of Good Seasons Italian dressing mix per the directions. It’s what I had on hand and it worked fine.

And instead of 3 cups of water and 3 cups of instant rice, I used 4-1/2 cups of water and 2 cups of parboiled rice. Again, it’s what I had on hand.

If you like chicken burritos, or any burritos, you really should give this recipe a try. You’ll be very happy you did!

Odds and Ends

My attention focused elsewhere currently, but I thought I'd put up a quick post for my regular readers (all three of you).

*****

Last weekend we celebrated my daughter's 24th birthday (her birthday was actually Wednesday) by going to an Ethiopian restaurant called The Blue Nile. The food is primarily meat and potatoes stewed in spicy gravies. Everything was delicious, and the real fun of the meal was that we didn't use flatware. Instead we used a pancake like bread called injera to scoop up the food, or we just used our fingers. We four adults (Shane, my daughter, her boyfriend and myself) thought the food was wonderful. Kat was a little less enthusiastic, but she loved the Beef Sambusa appetizer, and ate most of the Doro Watt (a chicken dish) on both platters we ordered. Despite the jokes about starving Ethiopians, we were absolutely stuffed by the time we left, as evidenced by these before and after photos of our plates. You can find out everything included on the platters by looking at Item #19 on this menu.

Before

After

*****

If you're so inclined, here are a couple of new (new-to-us, anyway) adult beverages to try. The first is Tusker Lager. It's a Kenyan lager that is light, yet full-flavored like a dark beer. It will be a special occasion beer for us because it is expensive ($45 per case of 24).


The second it Wild Turkey American Honey. This is a bourbon distilled with natural honey. It is wonderful in a bourbon and Coke (my favorite mixed drink) but is sweet and smooth enough to enjoy straight up or on the rocks. A fifth costs about $18.

*****

My entire week has been out of whack. First the holiday, then Shane came home sick Tuesday afternoon and missed all of Wednesday because rain shut the job-site down. Having him at home during the work week puts a halt to any kind of housekeeping groove I'm in, although I have to admit that yesterday we worked at getting a van load of things to the thrift store and several boxes of items listed on craigslist or half.com. I wouldn't have been able to get all of it done by myself. Still, here it is Friday and I feel like I accomplished little this week.

*****

If swear that if I didn't have a biological need to sleep, I wouldn't. There are so many things I need or want to do on any given day that it seems like sleep is a great waste of time.

*****

I may not be around for a few days, but no worries. I'm just working on some other projects here at home.

What?!

I have a question about my own pizza recipe: How do I get my 4-year-old granddaughter to eat it?

She won't eat pizza, no matter where it comes from or what toppings are on it. She used to love pizza a year or so ago, but now she won't touch it. Yet she likes lasagna, spaghetti and manicotti and she LOVES garlic bread.

She also isn't crazy about chocolate. She'll only eat it in small amounts and will pick a fruit-based candy over a chocolate bar. She prefers vanilla ice cream over any other flavor, and although she loved chocolate milk a year ago, she wants only plain white milk now. She'll eat most flavors of cake, but if it's chocolate, especially devil's food, she'll only eat the frosting. I have to admit that I'm the same way. I like it, but only a bite or two at at time.

Otherwise, she isn't that picky. It really depends on the day for her. She loves hamburgers, but if she's not in the mood for them the day I serve them, then she won't touch them.

That doesn't mean we cater to her, though. She still gets whatever Shane and I are having for our meal, which is sure to include at least one or two things she does like. And if she still doesn't want what we're having, she can have either a bowl of cereal or a peanut butter sandwich. Those are the choices, take them or go to bed hungry.

What about your kids? Are they picky eaters? Do any of them dislike typically kid-friendly foods? What do you do to get them to eat?