It's finally starting to get cold here in Southern California. Not as cold as other parts of the country certainly, but it's in the 40s when we go walking at night. What better way to warm up than with a warm beverage when we get home.
Today is National Hot Chocolate Day and we've got the perfect thing to go with it!
Sometimes you just don't have time for cereal and need something on the go. We tried Lucky Charms Treat bars not too long ago, and now we're trying Cinnamon Toast Crunch Treat bars!
While wandering the candy aisle, I found something that seemed a bit out of place. Bob Ross? On the candy aisle? Don't get me wrong, I think Bob Ross is great, but seeing him on the candy aisle was odd.
One of our favorite Indian places to eat at here in the South Bay is Al-Noor. Honestly, it's one of those places that is so good that we take people who come to visit to it. And when they come visit again, they're the ones who request we eat there. One of the best entrees there is their Chicken Tikka Masala. Tonight we're going to try to recreate it at home!
Today is National Chocolate Cake Day! Theresa loves making cakes for the family, so she was excited to make us all a delicious dessert today.
Today we're trying a new kind of popcorn. This is the Candy Pop M&M's Mini's taste test!
We're previous tried the Cookie Pop Oreo Popcorn and the Candy Pop Twix Popcorn. We liked both of those so we're happy to have a new flavor to try.
And if you didn't notice, Ian is dressed like the Blue M&M and Alli wanted to dress like the Green M&M.
Sunday is Pizza Day, but today also happens to be National Peanut Butter Day. We celebrated earlier by making our own homemade Peanut Butter. Now we're going to continue that Peanut Butter love and make peanut butter pizza!
At Goofy's Kitchen inside the Disneyland Hotel at the Disneyland Resort, one of the special things they offer as part of the buffet is Peanut Butter and Jelly pizza. That'll be perfect for National Peanut Butter Day, and it fits with my Sunday pizza theme!
Today is National Peanut Butter Day! Peanut Butter is pretty delicious and when I saw that January 24th was National Peanut Butter Day, I knew we were going to need to do something special. In our quest to try all the different Captain Crunch Cereals available we've tried quite a few obscure flavors like Cotton Candy Crunch, Chocolatey Berry Crunch, and Sprinkled Donut Crunch. We still needed to taste the commonly available Peanut Butter Crunch.
Tonight we're having another delicious breakfast for dinner. Theresa told me that it was all her favorite breakfast foods tonight in one place! There's bagels and cream cheese, hash browns, bacon, and eggs, so that she can make a breakfast burrito!
After the kids get done with school, they're free to play, read, exercise, or come up with other interesting things. Without telling us why, Ian asked us to pick up some strawberries from the grocery store for him. One afternoon he asked for them and we finally got to see what he was up to. He wanted to make a Strawberry Juice Popsicle! Well after juicing 3 large strawberries and having about a centimeter of juice in the medicine cup, Theresa suggested he turn it into a strawberry lemonade popsicle instead. He enthusiastically agreed!
Merry Christmas 2021! After a delicious breakfast of homemade cinnamon rolls, it was time to head back to the living room and continue opening presents.
Aubrey organized this one, and the kids have been doing a really good job keeping it a secret for the last few weeks.
Alli loves helping out in the kitchen. Say you need help and she comes running. Hey Alli, do you want to learn how to make wontons today?
Alli - Oh yes!
She ran off upstairs and came back with her apron that she got for Christmas.
Happy National Popcorn Day! I've been holding on to these Chocolate Popcorn M&Ms for a while now, and I think this is the perfect opportunity to taste them.
Happy Sunday! Today we're making a pizza special for Alli. Whenever I ask about toppings for pizza, she's been asking for the same thing for a long time. Just crust and sauce!
I've got the perfect pizza for you then! It's called a tomato pie pizza! Also known as red bread, strip pizza, church pizza, or even cold pizza, because often this pizza is served at room temperature or even chilled!
Even though it's winter throughout the rest of the country, Southern California is still beautiful. One of the things that both Alli and Theresa will remind us to do while we're on either walks or bike rides, is to stop and smell the roses. Yes, we know it's more of a general reminder to slow down and appreciate the little things around you, but roses smell fantastic, so we're going to dedicate a bike ride just to go see them!
Sometimes we just like to try all the things! We've tried a bunch of different kinds of regular Oreos. There's so many different flavors available! But in all that time, we've never tasted a fudge covered Oreo. We're going to take care of them all at once and try every single flavor I can find all at the same time!
My brother keeps me in the loop on lots of interesting snack things I should test. When he sent a link to the new Cheetos Mac'n Cheese, I was definitely interested. I was only able to find one flavor at the time at my local Walmart. He found them all and shipped me all three flavors!
Kool-Aid Cotton Candy? While I was at CVS I happened to see this randomly on the candy shelves. I like Cotton Candy, so yeah! Why not! And as I was looking around at graphics for this article, I found one of the Kool-Aid Man crashing through a wall holding cotton candy for a Mystery Flavor promotion they did recently. Gotta use that.
It's time for another kids creation! Tonight, we're making Rainbow S'mores!
It's a little late coming, but not as late as some other write-ups. It's Christmas morning! Merry Christmas!
Happy Sunday! Another day for making one of our favorite dinners. Pizza!
We've got a special one today, courtesy of a YouTube channel I follow. It's a pan pizza, similar to Pizza Hut, but with a different topping called Gremolata. Let's get started!
It's Saturday morning and I'm still in bed when I hear Alli come into the room.
Alli - Daddy, can we do a taste test this morning?!?
Me (rubbing the sleep out of my eyes), sure Alli, let me go look and see what I have.
In my taste test cabinet (yes, I have a cabinet for just my things), I find three different types of Lucky Charms.
Mister Owl, how many different flavors of Tootsie Pop are there?
Mister Owl - One, two, (crunch), three.
Oh Mister Owl. Even when they were invented back in 1931 there were at least 5 flavors. Today we're trying 19 different flavors!
I love that after-dinner mint known as the Andes Mint. The perfect amount of minty, chocolatey creaminess. I knew there were different varieties of Andes Mints and had thought about doing a taste test, but never got to it. Santa was watching me though and brought me 5 different Andes Mint flavors in my Christmas stocking! Perfect! Let's do a taste test!
This year Lay's has brought us a new Limited Time Flavor just for the holidays! Today we're tasting Lay's Salted Caramel chips.
Today we're making cookies! Yes, again! It's been fun getting together as a family and making them and decorating them, so this is the third batch of gingerbread cookies, and the second batch of sugar cookies!
Happy Sunday! It's pizza day! Christmas was just a couple weeks ago and their cousin Aubrey knew how much they liked helping out in the kitchen. She gave them a present of a Young Chef cookbook plus a cute pink apron for Alli. As the kids were looking through it, they came across a recipe for pizza and asked if they could make pizza on Sunday. I think that's a fantastic idea!
Since 2014 I have challenged myself every Christmas to make a special holiday treat. It started with Gingerbread Men (2014), Homemade Candy Canes (2015), Fudge (2016), Peppermint Marshmallows (2017), Figgy Pudding (2018), and Eggnog (2019).
And even though this year I've already made my first Gingerbread House, Salted Caramels, and Surprise Sugar Cookies, I'm not counting any of those for my official yearly treat. I was having a hard time deciding what I should make this year when Theresa suggested that I try making a Yule Log cake. I've seen them at Disneyland, looking pretty fantastic, and decided that would be the perfect challenge to make this year!
Not all these taste tests need to be big and involved. Sometimes a simple bag of Cheetos shaped like snowflakes can be fun to try. Today we're going to try these Cheetos White Cheddar Snowflakes!
Happy New Year! Wow 2020 sure was something. Pizza is usually on Sunday, but this is New Year's Day and I've got a special pizza planned.
Growing up in a southern family, I remember that every New Year's Day, along with our meal we'd have Black Eyed Peas. According to Southern Tradition, eating Black Eyed Peas on New Years Day is thought to bring good fortune and prosperity in the coming year. We could certainly use some of that going into 2021.
