Watermelon Juice

I know I already posted this picture, but I didn't include the recipe.
My sister-in-law, Stephanie made this for all of us on the 4th of July. The kids loved them, and some of the adults added a little rum to ours to spice them up a bit. Next time I make it, I will probably blend it with some ice for a slushy kind of texture (probably do the rum thing again, too).

6 c. of cubed watermelon, blended
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. water
1/2 c. pineapple juice
one can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed

In a small saucepan, combine the water and sugar and bring to a rolling boil, and simmer for 1 minute.
Strain the watermelon puree (I use a collander lined with coffee filters). Blend together the sugar mixture, watermelon, pineapple juice, and lemonade.
Serve over ice.

Blackberry Cobbler

I bought some fresh blackberries from the farmer's market. I was trying to figure out what to do with them, and I remembered that Daphne has a easy and fabulous cobbler recipe on her blog, Food Junkie from Texas.
Needless to say, it was great. Especially with Blue Bell Vanilla Bean ice cream. :)

Peach Glazed Chicken

We had a couple of peaches, and I love using fruit in my cooking. So, I decided to make a glaze for grilled chicken.
I pureed a couple of peaches, added some ginger, salt, pepper, honey, and rosemary (all to taste). I processed all that in the food processor until I got it to the texture that I wanted. You could probably reduce this down over the stove as well. Then I simply poured it over grilled chicken breasts.
It was sweet, but not too sweet, and so simple. Everybody really enjoyed it.

Fourth of July

We made a LOT of food for the fourth. Everything from really healthy to, well, not so healthy. We had a great time with my family for lunch and Chris' family for dinner. Now, I'm on a diet. :)

Fourth of July Cupcakes

There is really not a recipe, as these were from a (gasp) cake mix. We made red, white, and blue Funfetti cupcakes. So, no recipe just pictures.

We also made fruit kebobs (pineapple, grapes, strawberries, blueberries, and mango). . .

and homemade strawberry ice cream . . .

and watermelon juice (some of which were were spiked with a little rum).

Sweet Blueberry Cornbread

I love cornbread and I love blueberries, so when I found this on the Paula Deen website I had to make it. Of course, I tweaked it a little bit to make it healthier.

We ate it for breakfast drizzled with a little honey. The kids really liked it. I loved the texture and I was surprized at how well blueberries and cornmeal complimented each other.

Daphne has this on her blog, too. She used blue cornmeal instead of yellow. I will definately be trying that next time. :)

Sweet Blueberry Cornbread

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used whole wheat flour)

2/3 cup sugar ( I used helf sugar, half Splenda)

1/2 cup cornmeal

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups milk

2 large eggs, lightly beaten (I used Egg Beaters)

1/3 cup canola oil

4 tablespoons butter, melted

1 cup fresh or fresh frozen blueberries

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray an 8” square baking pan (I used a 9x13 pan) with non stick baking spray and set aside.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, corn meal, baking powder and salt. In a separate large mixing bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, oil and butter. Add to flour mixture to wet mixture and stir just until blended. Gently fold in blueberries.
Pour into prepared baking pan. Bake for 35 minutes or until wooden pick comes out clean. Serve warm with butter.

Animal Crackers

Oay, so I'm going to play a little catch up today. I've got about 4 or 5 different things to post PLUS 4th of July stuff. SO, there will be several posts for today. :)

The first one is animal crackers. We were actually looking for a graham cracker recipe, and we came upon this one (by "we" I mean Zane and I). I had some circus animal cutters, but I think they were a little too big for what we wanted. Also, I think next time I'm going to roll them out a bit thinner.

They didn't turn out very sweet, but Dillon and I like them. The other boys are kind of on the fence. Oh, and it didn't make very many, but, like I said, we were using large cutters.

Animal Crackers

Ingredients
1/2 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter
2 teaspoons honey
1/4 cup buttermilk

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grind oats until fine using a blender or food processor.
In a medium bowl, stir together the blended oats, flour, baking soda and salt. Cut in the butter using a pastry blender or your fingers until the butter lumps are smaller than peas. Stir in the buttermilk and honey to form a stiff dough. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/8 inch in thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place cookies 1 inch apart onto cookie sheets.
Bake for 5 to 7 minutes in the preheated oven, until edges are lightly browned. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.

Nutritional Information
Amount Per Serving Calories: 40 Total Fat: 2.1g Cholesterol: 5mg
Nutritional Information
Animal Crackers
Servings Per Recipe: 24
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 40
Total Fat: 2.1g
Cholesterol: 5mg
Sodium: 54mg
Total Carbs: 4.8g
Dietary Fiber: 0.3g
Protein: 0.7g

The nutrition stats are the ones that were on the website, so I don't know if they are correct.