Healthy Indulgence

By Marilyn Hunter

Ben and Nick live for sweets, especially strawberry milkshakes, but there's a fine line between enjoying an occasional treat and overindulging. After years of worrying about too much sugar, we’ve found a healthier alternative with most of the sweetness the boys crave coming from summer strawberries.

Our goal was to find a healthy indulgence…a dessert that didn’t leave us feeling guilty. We tried many different types of homemade smoothies, but they just didn’t compare to soda fountain shakes. This simple shake is so delicious, they don’t even miss the real deal.

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Chill out with an Apricot Piña Colada

By Sandy Hu

Summer is a time for fruity drinks – preferably gussied up with a fancy garnish and sipped through a straw. If you have a blender, it’s easy to whip up delicious, Fresh Apricot Piña Coladas in minutes. Serve each drink immediately because the ingredients will separate upon standing.

Fruits are not uniformly sweet, so you may have to adjust the recipe with more simple syrup, depending on the quality of your fruit. Use simple syrup Instead of sugar to sweeten because sugar will not dissolve readily in cold liquids.

To make simple syrup, just combine equal parts of sugar and water and boil gently for a minute or two until sugar is dissolved. Store any leftovers in a glass jar, refrigerated, up to a month. You can use simple syrup to sweeten iced tea, sangria, lemonade and other cold drinks.

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Make your Own Summer Snow Cones

By Marilyn Hunter

Summer’s almost here and nothing says summer to Benny and Nicky like homemade snow cones! We try our best to teach our boys about how to eat following the seasons, enjoying what’s fresh and abundant at the moment. They look forward to this time of year because they get to pick the fragrant, juicy lemons from our neighbor Terri’s tree.

And when you live across the street from a prolific lemon tree, you’re obligated to come up with multiple ways to use its fruit – lemonade, lemon muffins; lemon bread. After all, one of life’s most important lessons is to not waste food.

But the boys’ favorite way to use lemons is lemon snow cones. Snow cones are very easy to make at home. You can find ice shavers at housewares stores, but we just put the cubes in a plastic bag and break them down with a meat mallet before finishing in the blender or food processor. Paper cones and spoon straws are summertime stock at your local grocery or party store. We make the syrup ourselves so the anticipation and enjoyment of the cones lasts longer.

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