Over the month of September I will be relocating.

I've decided to end a_muffin_story  for good. Don't worry, I wont delete this account since there are some food blogs linked to this journal, and I don't want to mess up their link lists, however- if you're one of these blogs, please update your links to reflect the change over to Never Bashful with Butter.


For those of you who still want to check out the action Via your Livejournal friendslist, be sure to add the Never Bashful site feed to your friends!

Sorry for any inconvenience this causes. I've just decided to move on and start over. Two food blogs are just too much for me, and condensing them into one blog just makes sense right now. Think of it as a sort of "Captain Planet" of food blogs. (...with our powers combined... get it?)

In the future, I'll be continuing my food blogging over at Never Bashful with Butter. Until this point, it has been mostly only for recipes and a few of the photos I've taken here, but after our relocation process ends in the beginning of October, I'll be back to posting all the photos and stories and recipes over there on that blog.

Also, Rodney and the Robots will not disappear, they're coming to blogspot with me, as I've got a special project planned for them as soon as I finish moving.

I really loved running a_muffin_story , and its sort of sad to let it go, but honestly, I think I can make Never Bashful even better by focusing on only one food blog (and still making occasional updates to Peabody's Breakfast Blogger, as well)

If at any point you'd like to contact me here is my info-

Oohyoutastylittlethings@gmail.com
Never Bashful with Butter
a_rockett 

Thank you so much for your continued support and interest in all things delicious!

-A.

P.S. You may notice that comments are disabled on all previous entries, this is so I don't have to worry about constantly checking this account for spam or rude comments or anything like that. If you need to comment on something, contact me through the above listed options.

Ok, you know I had to do it.

Its just not possible to make anything Swedish in my house without indulging in a fair amount of Swedish Chef-speak, and trust me.. There were plenty of "bork bork bork's" uttered this morning in my house.

I know these little cupcakes just look like regular old cupcakes, but they have a story.

They're modeled off of Swedish Princess Cakes.  The marzipan coated, whipped cream iced, raspberry jam and custard filled sponge cake domes that really aren't very common anywhere near where I currently live.

Sure, I've seen them on the internet, and thats exactly where I got the idea to make these cute little cupcakes. They're just like regular princess cakes, only they're bite sized, and filled, instead of layered.



The thing about these cupcakes, is that they're really labour intensive.

Not only do you have to make the sponge cake, but you've got to "soak" it in a sort of sugar syrup. Then fill it with raspberry jam and vanilla custard. Then add a giant mound of sweetened whipped cream, and cover the whole thing in a thin layer of green marzipan. The pink rose is the traditional decoration, and I figured since I put so much work into these little buggers, I might as well keep it simple with the decoration.



But why would I spend my entire morning making a dozen cupcakes, when I could have spent about 10 minutes making a dozen similar ones?

Herein lies a little bit of a story.

You see, my husband currently works for a company which is ran by Swedish people.
Well, I guess that story is a lot shorter than I thought it would be.

Anyways, My husband is quitting his job, and although there have been a few issues with his co-workers, but not anyone that he works with directly, He really likes the people he works with. When he first got the job, the owner of the company, whose name I don't know but I probably couldn't spell anyways, took my husband out to dinner, and told him how great of an employee he is, and how happy he was that they hired him.

Since then, he's called my husband probably once a month just to make sure everything is alright with him. From what I've gathered, this guy is pretty cool.

So, since my husband has been bringing in my cupcakes to work for his co-workers ever since I started this blog, I figure I'd send along a special batch, as Swedish as the boss, for Aaron's resignation day.

I mean, I thought about other Swedish things, but sending packages of Swedish fish to work with him just didn't have the same sentimentality behind it.


The one in front is my favourite...


-A.

Hey ya'll..

I've got a good question for all of you checking out your friendslist on a Saturday evening-

What is your favourite Food Movie?

Not necessarily a movie with food in the title (although that's alright, too)
But a movie that food is a really big part of the actual movie itself.


I'm trying to gather options for an upcoming themed blog.  I've decided to enter in a few of the "is my blog burning" blog contest things, just to spice stuff up.

Lemme know if you think of anything!
-A.

No really. I think its quite possible.

I mean, most of my childhood breakfasts were made up of some sort of premade boxed breakfast cereals...

Well, except for the special occasion breakfasts like birthdays and holidays.. and for a while we didn't have the money to buy breakfast cereal, but we raised chickens, so we ate a lot of french toast and scrambled eggs.

And sure, my fondest childhood breakfast stories do NOT center around the almighty box of cereal. Most of those breakfasts center around stories that are just too good not to tell. Stories that really have a message, Stories that I feel compelled to write down so that someday, when I can't remember for myself, I can look back at what I wrote down in my younger days, and smile.

The Breakfast cereal stories aren't so special. They typically begin with me, as a really young kid, drowning a bowl full of otherwise healthy corn, oat, wheat or other grain based cereal in a heaping mound of granulated sugar, and quickly pouring a healthy dose of milk on top before my mom or dad could tell the difference between my cereal and theirs.


So just the other day, I went to my moms house, and what do I see, but my little sister sitting on the front porch with her hand in a box of strawberry flavoured frosted mini wheats. 

Entering the house, I tell my mom how funny I think it is that they've gone and made a new variety of frosted mini wheats.. and she proceeds to pull four more DIFFERENT boxes of frosted mini wheats from the cabinet by the stove.

Apparently Kelloggs has been busy making a few different varieties of frosted mini wheats. And I couldn't help but photograph them all.



Five different varieties-



And apparently, the strawberry and vanilla cream flavoured versions have "Crunchlets" listed as an ingredient.





Vanilla Creme- for the win!

It was just simple enough to make a good breakfast, and not fake tasting at all. One might actually think its healthy for you... until you inquire about the crunchlets.



-A.

We've all been there.. Its been entirely too long since you've gone to the grocery store, and you feel like there is no food left in the house, but you've got plenty of "stuff" hanging out in your cupboards and fridge.

Yeah, that was me this morning.

I wanted to make something for the blog, but I didn't feel like walking to the store just to buy stuff when I've got plenty of random "stuff" all over my kitchen, I just have to get creative and put it all together.

Starting out with pantry goods, I gathered the makings of a standard pie crust- Sugar, Flour, Shortening.

Should I make a chocolate filling? I grabbed the chocolate chips.

Onto the fridge,  Scrapping the shortening, I grab a stick of butter. A brick of cream cheese, milk, Those pecans I've been snacking on for the past month, and a jar of caramel sauce I made the week before last for the ice cream I made but was unable to post about due to its mysterious disappearance when my husband came home early from work. *raises eyebrow* yeah, I think we all know what happened there.

Anyways, I gathered all these components, plus a lemon, and a visit to the spice rack added cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.

I had originally set out to make one tart, but whats the point in making one tart shell? Then I decided it would be fun to see if I could make a few different tarts all with the same ingredients.

And this is how I ended up with today's entry-

First, I made enough dough for three tart shells, and baked them.  Then I separated the main ingredients into three parts-



One tart, three ways- all leftovers.

I started off easy, mixing a portion of the cream cheese with cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar to make a sort of cheesecake cream, topping that off with caramel and chocolate dipped raw pecans-



Then I mixed some of the caramel in with some of the leftover cream cheese, added a little ginger and sugar, topped it off with crumbled oven toasted pecans and drizzled it with caramel and chocolate-



The third tart looks the best to me...
After pouring about a tablespoon of caramel into the bottom of the remaining tart shell, I mixed some of the chocolate in with the remaining cream cheese and a pinch of cinnamon, spooned it on top of the caramel and topped it off with the remaining melted chocolate and a raw pecan.



While I definitely don't have the stomach to eat all three of these tarts, I did taste the first one, and boy was it good!

So today I do believe I had myself a pretty good kitchen adventure. Only now, I really do have to get to the store if I'm to have any future kitchen adventures, as I do believe I've used up all of my "stuff" other than sugar and flour, which I seem to have pounds and pounds of.

As for other things, I do believe I'll be making the most of this beautiful summer afternoon we're having here in the Northwest, I'm gonna grab my husband right after work and head to a park to make grass angels!

Hope you're all having a splendid Monday!

-A.

Not much for recipes today, I was much too busy with random family things to do much in the way of baking or cooking. 

I've been trying really hard not to have any extra candy or goodies in the house, mostly sending the stuff I make for this blog away, and not really buying much in the way of candy or anything else. Sure, sometimes my sweet tooth gets the better of me, and days like today, I give it a little treat, just to keep it from really making its presence known when more overly sugary and sweet treats are within reach.

So while I was cleaning my kitchen, going through my gadgets and appliances, picking out what I want to keep, which I want to store, and which I want to get rid of, I realized I had this big old cotton candy machine just hanging out on top of the fridge. Part of me wanted to just put it in the get rid of box, but another part of me said I should keep it, because you never know when you'll want a cotton candy machine handy.

Then my sweet tooth chimed in, and I ended up making a batch of cotton candy.  Luckily, as the robot in the photos is attempting to explain, it only took one tablespoon of sugar to make the two giant handfuls of cotton candy pictured. One tablespoon of sugar = 45 calories. Not bad when you think that two Hershey's kisses are 50 calories.

Anyways, I happily snacked on my cotton candy while taking a break from household stuff... but I waited until after I had a little photo shoot with the green robot here...  Hey, I'll take any excuse to post robot photos!


And.. It is soft...


And you made all that cotton candy with only this much sugar???


See ya later sugar, I've got a date with a big fluffy ball of cotton candy...


I only wish I could store this stuff without it crystallizing. It would make tea parties so much more fun.
"One puff or two?"
-A.

P.S. This robot needs a name.

Living in the country, its definitely not a rarity to claim to have a berry bush of some sort in my childhood front yard. Especially not living in the Northwest. 

Back when I was a kid, it seemed like everyone wanted theirs gone. All of our neighbours were often seen in the yard, donning their full on yard armor- Carhartts, Flannel, leather gloves, long boots.. The real serious ones even wearing some sort of crazy headgear consisting of a fine mesh screen being held at a distance from the face, suspended by some sort of wirework.  Always with clippers, pruning shears, scissors, shovels, rakes, post hole diggers. Some sort of weaponry against the berry bushes. 



I've yet to go berry picking this summer, and I know the window for berry season is drawing to a close, but my mom was able to take my sisters berry picking this weekend, and they brought me a few containers of fresh raspberries to eat and bake with.

Berries don't seem to last very long in my house, so I froze one of the containers of berries before it had a chance to over ripen or mold. The second container I reserved for baking... but really, only about half of them made their way into this recipe, the rest...

Well.. lets just say they were very tasty.

Today I made chocolate raspberry cupcakes with raspberry cream cheese filling, chocolate icing and a little raspberry cream cheese on top.



...Uh oh.. the robots found them...




So enjoy your summer. Enjoy the simplicity that is this change in weather, which is only temporary. Enjoy your youth if you have it, and the life you've lived, if you don't.

And for goodness sakes, eat some cupcakes.

-A.

-Lesley Boone

Sometimes all it takes is a little cupcake to cheer a person up. 

Today I needed a little cheering, so I made some cupcakes.








Despite their different colours, they're all the same flavour. Butter cake with Almond/Orange icing.


I realized today that our local county fair started today. The Clark County fair, where I got my start in baking.

You see, back when I was an itty bitty little girl, my mom, my sister and I used to spend weeks and weeks in the kitchen during the month of July, In preparation of the baking booth at the Clark County fair. We'd all enter at least 5 entries each year, mostly just to see what ribbons we could win, but it was also pretty cool when we ranked high enough to get a little money for our hard work.

I remember entering all sorts of goodies. Zucchini bread, spice cake, coconut macaroons, buttercreams, pound cake, cheesecake, chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies... My mom always entered the specialized contests, like the decorated dummy cakes and the bread contests. My sister was in 4-H, so she had her own contests amongst the other 4-H'ers.

We're going to try to go to the fair this coming week, so I might have photos from that if we end up going. In addition to that, I'm going to try and re-create some of those recipes that I made way back when. We'll see. I've got a few of the actual original recipes on hand, and a few other ones that I've tweaked over the years. 

And I still have that huge 5 gallon drum (with about 4 gallons still in it) of dessicated coconut, so.. coconut macaroons might just be something I have to make next week! 

Also, I'd like to apologize for the lack of photos this week. We had a little family crisis (still in the midst of it, actually) so all extra activities were sort of shut down over the end of the week. I'm still dedicated to posting as often as I can, but things might be slow for the next week or so.  Please bear with me.

Also, My husband managed to eat my tarts and my ice cream BEFORE I could take photos of it. I'm thinking I need to get some post it notes and stick them to everything I make with a little note saying "Haven't photographed yet" so it doesn't happen again. Like I said though, we had a bit of an issue this week, so I didn't mind so much, I've been sort of bogged down with other things.

Please keep The Muffin household in your pleasant thoughts and good graces over the next days and into the coming weeks. I'd really appreciate it.


Until then, I've got some cupcakes to give to my upstairs neighbours.
-A.

(or- "back in the saddle again")

Doughnut, Donut, its all the same. A piece of fried dough, risen, fresh, cake or old fashioned, it doesn't matter. Rolled in sugar, cinnamon, powder, soaked in glaze, dipped in frosting. Its all the same.

Or is it?

It seems the cartoon ideal for what a donut should look like, is circular, with a hole cut in the middle, fried golden and schmeered with a good helping of pink icing, and sprinkled with rainbow non-pareils.


Not being one to rock the boat, I've adhered to this standard since childhood.



Way back in the day, before my mom ever let me hover over a pot of hot oil to make my donuts, I was content to make them in other ways..


Sure, sometimes life gets to where I feel like someone's taken a big bite of my donut again, and I've fallen into a hole.. But I just have to keep trying to get back to the sweet stuff on the other side.



I think more people should take donut photos like this-


Such is life, and donuts.

-A.

(P.S. That last photo is me watching Naked Chef through the donut hole. Mmm.. loves me some Jamie Oliver..)
(P.S.S. Yes, we have two TV's in our living room. One is strictly for playing video games, though. We're big nerds.)

What can I say, Summer is a busy time around here at the Muffin Household. House projects, Work projects, Injuries and all around general Lameness has kept me from posting much as of late. Don't worry, thats going to change soon, and we'll be back up to the (at least) 3 posts a week that you're used to.

However, in the meantime, I've been contemplating a few projects, and I'd like to get your opinions.


Now, these are just ideas, but, would anyone be interested in a Rodney Robot/ Random ninja/ random kitchen character- photo based adventure 'zine?  I'm thinking a full colour 10 page or so mini-zine, Mostly photos, with a different story or adventure every edition. It would follow a general "character + food + recipe" format,  with one recipe being included in each zine.

Also, it would have to come at a price, and I have no idea what that price would be. Anyone out there have any comparison ideas?

This is just something I've been thinking about lately. I've been struggling with my lack of creativity, and realizing its because I feel a bit stifled. ugh. This happens once every few months, I get burnt out and when I come back things are even better than before. So please bear with me.

-A.

Any opinions or ideas are greatly appreciated! (P.S. Rodney is starting his own official blog on blogspot called "Robots and Cupcakes" beginning August 1st! Keep your eyes peeled for the unveiling!)

I had a party on Saturday, and one of my guests brought me a beautiful loaf of bread as a gift. I have to admit, I thought of you,

swingangel , and your loaf of bread when I saw this.
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Anyways... I thought all the other foodies and kitchen enthusiasts who read this would enjoy this video equally.

-A.

P.S. I'm looking for a great bread recipe, Anyone have a perfect one to share? leave it in the comments!

Hey everyone.. I know I've been absent from posting over the last week, but don't worry. I'm not gone. I just spent the whole last week prepping for and having a big party.

I'd do a big ol post about party food today, but it'll have to wait for tomorrow. I'm gonna take a nice cold bath and relax today, but like I said, tomorrow I'll post all sorts of recipes for delicious party food and appetizers.

After that, we'll get back to the regular two or three posts a week until Summer ends and the weather cools enough for me to do more baking.

But until then, food network watchers- don't forget, tonight we find out who wins the next food network star! And in other Food network news, while I'm not her biggest fan...


Giada? (click on the photo for more Giada- and her giant head- in Esquire magazine.)

For everyone else just looking for a delicious food photo fix, be sure to check out Tastespotting, which is where I found the link to the above photo, but where you can also find tons of drool worth food photos.

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!

-A.

Although the it seems that we're taking a bit of a break from the scorching temperatures of last week, here in the Northwest, Its still warm, and I still don't feel like heating up my house.

So I return to the waffle iron in search of another perfect breakfast.



At first  glance, these waffles might look a little plain, but let me assure you, they're not.

They're chock full of pecans, cinnamon and caramel!



They're even drenched in a maple pecan caramel glaze.




I don't really have much of a story to go along with these, other than to tell you, they're completely delicious, a bit addictive, and perfect for the breakfast lover with a sweet tooth ( though they're just sweet enough, and definately not nearly as sweet as a dessert waffle.) Amazingly enough, they're light and fluffy, and perfect for a summertime breakfast.

Recipe coming soon at Never Bashful with Butter!

-A.

And, its totally delicious.





Check out the post I just made to The Breakfast Blogger about my waffle iron only breakfast sandwich.

Cheddar waffles, bacon and eggs, all in one waffle iron. I like to call it "The MacGyver".

Quick, simple, easy and best of all- I DIDN'T CHANGE THE TEMPERATURE IN THE KITCHEN AT ALL!
Go now- Check it out. TONS more photos there, as well as many other breakfast -centric  photos from the lovely team of breakfast lovers over at The Breakfast Blogger.

-A.

In the same vein as Tang and various other astronaut safe foods, today I bring you the wonder that is freeze dried Ice cream.





Freeze dried ice cream, more commonly known by its "street" name of Astronaut ice cream, can be purchased in many places. My first introduction to it was, of course, at OMSI, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. I was  still  nearly a baby, and I was fixated on becoming an astronaut. Astronaut Ice cream just seemed fitting as my favourite snack at the time.


Luckily, I was young and impressionable. I kept up with my dreams of being an artist, proving to my grandma that you can make money as an artist, and developing another dream of mine.. To become a baker.

So thank Barbie, every time you come here and see a delicious looking cupcake, muffin, breakfast treat or baked good. Thank Barbie for it all.

-A.

As an incentive, I offered to bake a batch of vegan cupcakes for the lucky purchaser.

It just so happened that the person who responded to the post I made about it on damnportlanders is the wife of one of my husbands co-workers. They ended up buying the car, and last night I made a batch of vegan cupcakes for my husband to bring to work with him, to give to his co-worker to bring home.

This one.. well..

It "didn't fit" in the container, so.. I had to keep it. What can I say?



Its Cherry almond flavoured. I loves it. Last night after I made the icing, Aaron licked the beaters because he liked the flavour so much. Best thing, its completely vegan, and oh so tasty.

Today is another super hot day here in the Northwest, and tomorrow is looking like it will be even hotter. For the next week or so, I'll probably post mostly no-bake or low-bake goodies and foods, simply because turning on the oven is nearly painful with all the heat in the house.

Hope everyone is having a happy Monday!

-A.

The other night, my husband and I did just that.  They must have been out of boxes, so they gave the biscuits to us in a bucket.

I couldn't pass up a little LOL Hamster photo shoot, starring my hamster, Dave.



Its true. Dave has a bucket.

No comment from our other hamster, Marcus, who didn't seem anywhere near as interested in the bucket as Dave did.

-A.

So last night, I couldn't sleep. I thought of maybe making cupcakes or bread, or something that required the use of the oven, because really, it cools off quite a bit at night, and the heat would have just blended in with the daytime temperature.

I sat down by my cookbook shelf, and looked through all my neglected cookbooks. So many neglected cookbooks. I'll fully admit, I'm a compulsive cookbook purchaser. I'm mostly attracted to niche cookbooks- cookbooks that have some sort of hook, or theme- Something different than the typical betty crocker bible. Also, I LOVE the kind that have a photo for every recipe. Then there are the kind that I rarely open, but have plenty of. Brand cookbooks.  I don't usually buy them, but my mom does. Then she passes them on to me, and being the kind of girl who can't let a cookbook go without a home, I take them in and let them live amongst the rest of my cookbooks.

Some of them are so simple, they're not even recipes. Putting coolwhip and chocolate pudding together in a pre-made graham cracker crust (thank you- keebler) isn't a recipe. Its assembly.

But some of them are pretty darn cool. Like this Jello recipe book that I've been harboring for the past few years.



Its as old as I am, having been printed in 1981, so I feel a sort of kinship with it.

also, I happen to think the price tag on the front is HILARious..


You know, because.. well, we all know what gelatin is made of, right?

Anyways, so this book has some pretty nifty recipes in it. Sure, It was made in the 80's, so as expected, there are more Jello salad recipes than you could expect to see at a church potluck in Utah, but still, if you think of it as more of an idea book, its very helpful. I mean, everything you could ever hope to learn about jello, can be found within its pages. I never thought about making Jello marshamallows, but really, marshamallows are made with gelatin, so it makes sense! It tells about making moist cakes with it, how to add fruit to it, how to make different textures (whipped, flaked, cubed, cutout, tilted, layered) and a lot more.

My favourite thing about it, is that while most of the "recipes" are more like the assembly directions you'd find in most brand cookbooks, These are way more creative.

Like the "recipe" I used to make Lime Jello Sherbet-







A few ingredients that most people have around their house, no fancy equipment, and best of all, It only takes a few hours to make it, and then overnight in the fridge for it to be finished!  I should know, I made mine between Midnight and 4:30AM this morning.

Needless to say, I'm pretty impressed with this simple recipe. I'm pretty impressed with my Jello cookbooks too. I've got two different ones, "The joys of Jello", and "Easy homemade desserts with Jello pudding", Which, obviously, focuses on Jello pudding, rather than Jello Gelatin. (It also is three years older, and has more real recipes, AND it holds the coveted Jello Pudding pop recipe from my childhood)

I'm thinking I'll be doing more Jello recipes this summer. There is very little heat involved with most of them, and the bright colours really make it feel like summer.

-A.

When I heard that twelve 7-11's across the United States were turning into KWIK-E-MART's as a promotional deal for the upcoming simpsons movie, I searched through the internets to see where these kwik-e-mart's were.


Unfortunately, none of them are near me. The closest one is in Seattle, and although in my past I may have driven in all matter of random directions for random things (Silverdale for a toaster, Coos Bay for cheesecake, central oregon for Afri-kola, you get the drift) I just didn't feel like driving to seattle to take photos of a kwik-e-mart was at the top of the list.

Anyways, I found out that most of the regular 7-11's are carrying the Simpsons merchandise, so.. off to 7-11 I went.

Apparently there is quite the demand for most of the products, so they were out of most of the merch, but I did manage to snag a box of Krusty-o's.

If you've watched more than a single episode of the simpsons, chances are, you know what Krusty-o's are. Here is what I bought-

Part of a balanced simpsons breakfast (no, I didn't accompany my bowl of krusty-o's with a stick of butter wrapped in a waffle, wrapped in bacon, ala Homer)


Yep, they're basically just fruit loops. Nothing special.




We're keeping an eye out for when the rest of the simpsons food merchandise gets to us, but in the mean time, if you're interested, check out this blog FULL of photos from someone who visited one of the 7-11's that turned into a Kwik-E-Mart.

-A.

One thing I've never gotten used to, living in the Pacific Northwest.. For every 10 months or so of rain, sleet, freezing rain, cloudy days, and lack of heat, we have just about 2 months of sweaty, sticky, hot hot hot, weather. 

I don't know what the deal is, but I just can't seem to function on these days. Never have. During my childhood I was thankful that it was hot during the summer when school was out, because I knew I'd be miserable in our school building, which lacked air conditioning, fans, or any other sort of cool down devices. We had these little half windows that on the hotter days that actually happened during the school year, they'd prop open with a stack of books, and students would be so distracted creating paper fans and being hot, that it was nearly impossible to focus on whatever our teacher was trying to tell us.

During recess, most students would go run outside, try to burn off their fidgets, or cool themselves under the shade of the overhang in the back of the school yard.  Not me though. I went to the library.

Sure, I loved books. I loved school in general. I was a teachers aide, an office aide, I gave up my lunch hour recess to file papers and answer phones in the principals office. But my reason for visiting the library wasn't exactly in the search for higher learning.

They kept all the fans in the library.

Me, and a handful of other kids who'd learned this secret, would gather around one of the short tables, and the librarian, who apparently felt sorry for us, would set one of the fans next to our table, so it would blow the already cool air of the windowless library on us.

We had a pretty cool librarian, she told us we could eat our lunches in the library, so long as there were no books on our table, and anything we drank had to have a resealable opening.

My mom would make my lunch every day. We didn't have a lot of money, so I basically had the same thing for lunch every day. I didn't mind, it was full of my favourite stuff-

Capri sun, peanutbutter sandwich (or fluffernutter, or peanutbutter rollups. Some variation of peanutbutter and bread) 1 or 2 boiled eggs, carrot slices and a little tupperware container with ranch dressing, and a fruit cup.

You know the kind, Del Monte brand fruit cups, in the metal containers with the lid that made the "PhhhloaOCk" sound when you popped it open?

They were cheap, I remember my mom buying them 5 for a dollar. Normally they weren't so cheap, but she bought them from the canned food warehouse, which is a place that sells stuff for less because its been mislabeled, or something else. Its where all the halloween themed cereal goes AFTER halloween.

So, I had one in my lunch every day. I remember my favourite part of the fruit cup was the cherry slice, even though sometimes, it didn't have one. Otherwise it was made up of  peaches, melon, pineapple, orange bits, pear and whatever else, I loved this bright ending to my lunch.

So here is my version of the fruit cup. More cherries, melon, some peach slices, lychee, and a little agave nectar.





Anyways, so the librarian wouldn't let me drink my capri sun in the library, but she made an exception for my fruit cup. I think maybe after a few lunches she realized that my family didn't have the money to put everything in resealable containers, or something. I dunno.

Either way, I've always been fond of fruit salads during the summer, when the only way to escape the heat is by sitting infront of a fan, sipping on a cold beverage... and enjoying a bowl full of cool juicy fruit.



Pretty tasty for a hot summer day like today, when its impossible to cook inside your house. I think we'll be barbecuing for the next feel weeks, if this keeps up.

Hope everyone else is doing well, and enjoying their summer!

-A.