Of course, summer vacation means summer. While many places are experiencing cooler than normal weather, it's already plenty hot here, having already hit the century mark for over a week now. The evenings and mornings are still cool, but that won't last long.
When it's hot, I start to taper off on the coffee and up the iced tea. This week I made a cinnamon-infused raspberry tea. It was fantastic.
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| Can't you hear me just relax, sit back, and have an "ahhhh" moment? |
- 2 quarts water
- 2 large iced tea bags (we use Luzianne, but it doesn't matter except that it should be made for iced tea)
- 2 bags raspberry tea (I use Bigelow raspberry herbal tea)
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- handful fresh raspberries
Bring water to a boil. Pour over tea bags and cinnamon sticks; let steep for at least ten minutes. Remove cinnamon and tea bags (leave the tea in if you prefer a stronger tea). Bring tea to room temperature before chilling. Pour over ice; garnish with more raspberries, if you like.
I only left the cinnamon in for about five minutes, and it's a small hint; ten minutes would really be ideal to have a little snap to it in combination with the raspberries.
So... cinnamon. It's not only an antioxidant but also a great anti-inflammatory. So on top of tasting great, by adding a bit of cinnamon, you're doing something good for you. While I do love me some good sweet tea, unless it's REAL sweet tea, I don't prefer any sweetener in my teas, so the cinnamon was more clear than if I had added any sugar. The raspberries were slightly sweet, but not cloyingly so, so it was really fresh on a hot Arizona day. Just know that if you are caffeine sensitive, you should probably not drink the tea in the afternoon; I couldn't help myself and paid the price of having trouble sleeping last night.
Considering I made this batch Thursday and it's nearly gone, I'm certain we'll be drinking a good deal of iced tea this summer.
A tall glass of iced tea is especially refreshing after a round of pushups for the Hundred Pushups Challenge.
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| Now on pre-sale: tickets to the gun show (that joke is not going to go away) |
I'm definitely feeling it in my arms, but I'm less sore today than I was earlier in the week. The thought of doing 100 pushups is still daunting, but knowing that I can already almost do 1/4 of that makes me feel like it's attainable.
As a sidebar, I had determined that I needed a "before" shot of me flexing, but The Husband was a little reluctant to do so before he headed out on a business trip, so I have nothing to show right now, but hopefully I'll have that little gem for you soon. I promise there will be no duck lips.
Confession: I am also doing other arm workouts for my cross training two times a week of late, so I'm hoping that I can gain some more upper body strength faster than if I were JUST doing the Hundred Pushups Challenge.
Lastly, there was a bit more success in the "Get My Child To Eat More Than Five Foods" campaign. A friend of mine posted a picture on my Facebook wall (or timeline or whatever it's called now) of a little girl eating from an ice cube tray.
Genius.
I promptly did the same thing for HRH's dinner that night.
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| My picture was not as cute as the one posted on my timeline. |
I'm sure that my mom will die when she sees that I put chocolate chips in there with dinner, but I've been allowing a small amount of dessert with each dinner. It's made clear that it's all the dessert that HRH will get. If she eats it first, so be it.
Same goes with things like Goldfish. She knows they, like chocolate chips, are a "slow" food (as explained over at Peas and Thank You). However, being able to get a little bit is better than nothing (something I wish I could teach my students in reference to grades), so the 12 little trays of "go" food and 2 of the "slow" food made for an adventurous meal. I'm even happy to report that she ate a few of the pecans, although The Husband admitted that he "helped" HRH with that tray. But by the end of dinner, almost everything was gone.
The chocolate chips tray, of course, was completely empty.
It was so popular that HRH asked to have her breakfast the next morning in the tray, so I think this is another serving dish that is here to stay until she decides that she's willing to eat normal things like macaroni and cheese, salad, or oatmeal.
What creative things have you done of late to get your picky eaters (husbands may be included in this group) to eat their "go" foods?
How many pushups can you do right now?
What's your favorite iced tea (or hot tea - we don't like to discriminate) infusion?
OK, first of all...100 push ups seems so ridiculously hard that I might just have to try it. If it rids me of my grandmother's bologna slices that have somehow transplanted themselves under my arms, then I'm all over it.
ReplyDeleteAs far as picky eaters go: yes. The ice cube trays are a good tool. I'm also not afraid to steam and puree just about any vegetable and pack it into sauces and/or mac & cheese in attempt to get more veggies into my 2 pickiest eaters. But the salad? If you ever get HRH to eat it, let me know how. None of my boys will eat salad, although each will pick favorite chunks out of the greens.
When I taught in Battle Creek, one of my co-workers called them "Bingo Wings," since when a person wins Bingo, he or she will stand up, scream "BINGO!" and wave his or her arms. Horrifying.
DeleteI have been working on the pureeing. The death of the blender was a shock to the system, but hopefully we'll be back up and running with a new addition to the Kitchen Staff here soon. HRH likes to discuss salad, but she refuses to EAT it.