Thursday, July 26, 2012

Christmas in July - Start making gifts now! (Hats)

I know it's hard to imagine with the blue sky and hot sun blazing overhead, but Christmas is less than 6 months away.  With finances a little tighter for everybody these days, homemade gifts are on the rise. With some inexpensive pretty yarn and a little know how, you could make some easy hats and scarves for the people you love!


The only thing you need after that is a set of looms and some time, and (hint hint) if you start early, like say  NOW, in the summer, you will have all of your Christmas gifts done by winter time.

How my addiction to yarn started:
(otherwise known as "Confessions of a Yarn-aholic" )

A few years back I was over at my Mother-in-law's house and she was making a scarf on a little round loom.  I was intrigued.  She gave me an extra loom and a skein of yarn and I'm telling you, I couldn't put the thing down.  Soon I had a  5 foot tube of yarn and no idea how to get it off the loom.  She was left handed and I was right. She lived about an hour away and couldn't really tell me over the phone.  Reading the instructions for the loom only included a hat.  I went on youtube to try and find out how to do it, and had the hardest time finding clear instructions from start to finish. There were some that said how to cast on, others how to cast off, and most were very confusing, out of focus, and hard to hear.  After figuring out what actually worked I decided to make some youtube videos of my own teaching people how to make at first a hat, the easier of the two, and then a scarf.  The key was showing something from start to finish. 

You can get a 4-pack of looms for $16 or less (Knifty Knitter Round Loom 4-pack) online and the four sizes are great. It also comes with a loom hook and a plastic needle. The tutorial I made shows the example with the smallest sized loom, but the techniques can be applied to all sized looms, depending on your needs and the size of the heads your are making things for.  Here are the four sizes and what they are good for:

Blue Loom  (24 pegs) - Makes preemie or American girl doll-sized hats

Red Loom (31 pegs)  - Makes child-sized hats from about 2T-6T

Green Loom (36 pegs) - Makes teen and adult-sized hats

Yellow Loom (41 pegs) - Makes extra large hats for adults with bigger heads or extra hair.


Here is a link to my you tube video on how to make a hat from a round loom.  It is in two parts and walks you step by step, from casting on your yarn to completing the hat with a pom pom.  Again the tutorial is for a doll-sized hat but you can get any sized loom and make the right sized hat you need.  By the way, the tutorial shows me using only one strand of 4-ply yarn.  That is mostly for demonstration of technique.  If you are making a hat for warmth, you will need two strands (meaning buy two skeins of the same kind of yarn), held together at the same time and wrapped at the same time to get a strong, warmer hat with no holes in it.

Part I: 


Once you make the brim of the hat, do a few more rows, cinch up the hat, add a pom pom for the ultimate cuteness factor, and va-la, you just knitted yourself a hat!

Part II:




In the next post I will talk about how to make beautiful scarves with these exact same looms.  Not only that I can teach you how to change colors!  That means you could make a Santa hat with a white border, red hat, and white pom pom.  That means you could make hats and scarves in your favorite teams' colors.  I love that you can tailor colors and themes to fit whoever you are making the items for.  Personalized gifts cost only a little bit of time and very little money, but the end result for a gift is awesome!  Thanks so much and happy knitting.

PS.. Just as a warning!!  These round looms became what I like to call the "gateway drug" to crochet.  It was from these looms (well, actually the long rectangular looms) where I was making a blanket and wanted to do a finished edge, then taught myself crochet on you tube and now I can't stop crocheting.  Like seriously, I have 7 giants bins stuffed full of yarn  and a ton of crocheting projects in the works.  So I warn you, don't start all this loom fun without understanding the risks that you might fall in love with all things yarn related!  

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Make Your Own Sprinkler - Kid Craft

We love getting our Family Fun magazine in the mail.  It always comes loaded with fun crafts and snacks to make.  My eldest daughter and I like to read it together and I let her pick out which craft she wanted to try and make. She picked the homemade sprinkler, which looked like a lot of fun.
.
Homemade sprinkler out of a 2-liter bottle - how fun!
You only need a few things.  A push pin, a bamboo skewer, a clean empty 2-liter soda bottle, and a quick trip to the hardware store to get what they call a 3/4 inch female x 3/4 female swivel hose adapter.  We got ours at the Home Depot in the plumbing section (thank you nice man in the orange vest that seemed amused at a mom and three little girls looking for a random part and led us right to them)... Oh and the package looks like this:



We also got some extra hose washers (above) to help seal up the leaks.  So the first thing you want to do is to rinse the empty 2-liter bottle and take off the label. Put one of the red washers inside one side of the adapter (the side that is going to fit over the bottle) and twist it on and secure tightly to the 2-liter bottle.  By the way, the swivel adapter does come with a black washer already in it, we added the second red one as suggested in the magazine directions.


Next get a push pin and poke 8 holes along one side of the bottle only (the top)


Eight holes in all

Next take a bamboo skewer and widen each of the holes a bit


Now the holes are a bit bigger.  My guess is if you just did push pins sized holes, it might be more of a mister/sprayer effect (great for gardens) but we only had one 2-liter bottle to work with so I will experiment with different sized holes the next time I have a chance.


With the slightly larger bamboo-enhanced  hole size, we are now ready to test our experiment. It only took as a few minutes to put this whole thing together (well, minus time it took to drive to Home Depot).  We then took it outside and excitedly attached it to our garden hose.  We started with the water pressure on low and watched the 2-liter bottle fill up and then the water suddenly squirted out of the top.  Hooray it works! 


Then we decided to crank up the pressure and see what would happen:

Boom goes the Dynamite

Rock on.  That works pretty great!  As a bonus, the girls liked how the water in the bottle acted like a "magnifying glass" on the grass below.



Shortly after they they were clamoring to get on their suits and try it out for themselves.


Success!!

This by the way turned out to have more than one use.  Because you can choose the strength of the spray (water pressure), the size of the holes (small for mist, larger for kid sprinkler), and angle the direction of the spray (straight up, to the side), the sprinkler also made a nice way to water our garden lightly.  We also have used it this year to help wet down our slip and slide, when the store-bought slide sprayed the wrong way.  My girls were so very proud of themselves for making their own sprinkler and want to make more this year so they can run through more than one at a time, obstacle course style.  Let me know if you end up making this and what you use it for!

Monday, July 23, 2012

Treasure Maps - X Marks the Spot!

It's midway through summer vacation and I love when my girls can spend the day lost in imagination play. If we build a fort out of chairs and blankets, soon there will be puppet shows, camping adventures, stuffed animal petting zoos, and flashlight tea parties.  I had almost forgotten about something I made them last year on a whim, but here they are, one year later, still playing with it today.  Everyone seems to be on a pirate/treasure kick lately, with Jake and the Neverland Pirates from Disney, Pirates of the Caribbean, Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure... and seriously, who doesn't love to go on a good ol' treasure hunt adventure?  


A bamboo treasure map - perfect for imagination play
I wanted to make my girls some roll up maps.  At first I was going to use construction paper, but I did not think that would hold up well with all the rolling and unrolling and stuffing in backpacks.  I was wandering around the Target $1/clearance section when I found a 4-pack of bamboo placemats for $2.50.  They had both plain and bright colors.  I thought four different colored maps would be extra fun, depending on which "treasure" you were searching for.

multi-colored bamboo placemats make great treasure maps! 
I did say 4-pack and well we did have a yellow one, but I think Captain Hook might have stolen it...hmm, that sneaky scalawag...  After that all you really need is a black, thick sharpy and a bit of imagination.  Older kids can draw their own maps, but as mine were still little at the time I asked each girl where she wanted her map to go.  Now, I'm no artist, and bumpy bamboo is not the easiest medium to sketch on, but I made a starting point and made a dotted path through different areas to an "X" marks the spot at the end.  Wander by the water fall and through the double crossed palm trees...


Be sure to be extra quiet when you tippy toe past whatever is sleeping in the large cave (my girls like to change what's sleeping in there, is is a bear?  A dragon? A giant?) and pass the turtle farm...


And when you reach the mermaid lagoon you know the treasure is close by!


Each map was different.  My littlest wanted a map to grandma's house


My middle child wanted a volcano, a pirate ship, a dolphin cove, and a picture of the treasure chest.  She also wanted to gussy this one up with her own colors, which is why it is extra colorful.



The great things about these placemat treasure maps is that it would work for BOTH boys and girls.  You can draw random fun things like us, or have it actually lead to some kind of "real" treasure, like at a birthday party.  They are sturdy enough that you can roll and unroll them many times, stuff them in backpacks, and the girls just love them.  I just heard my middle child say, "let's go to the volcano next, but look out for hot lava" to her little sister. You can really let your imagination soar with these maps.  They have literally kept my girls busy for large chunks of the afternoon.  By the way, since the Target clearance/$1 section does not always have the same stuff each season, you could also look for cheap placemats at party stores in the luau section, or even the dollar tree has "straw" placemats for $1 each. Good luck and happy treasure hunting!

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Great Way to Shred Chicken

Just wanted to pass along a neat little trick I learned the other day.  Many recipes call for shredded chicken: enchiladas, tacos, pulled BBQ, soups, and casseroles.  Though I love all these recipes, my least favorite part is boiling the chicken and shredding it with two forks.  I was surfing the interwebs (as I like to call them) when I came across a way I had not thought of and I wanted to try it.  Did you know you can shred chicken in your KitchenAid stand mixer?

It's sitting there right on my counter, why had this not crossed my mind before? Genius
Why yes, yes you can!  I just proved it 2 days ago.  First boil some chicken in a big pot.  I start with Costco chicken breasts (still frozen) which are just enormous (those must be some big busted chickens down at the Dolly Parton ranch).  I put 4 -6 breasts in the pot of water and let it come to a boil for about 20-30 minutes.  While still warm I take them out of the water and placed them on a cutting board.  Now I guess most people would just toss the breasts whole right into the mixer, which you can do, but I wanted to get off all the fat clumps and get rid of some of the main veins and "undesirables", so I chopped them into big chunks of just pure chicken meat.  Plus I wasn't sure this was going to work so I wanted smaller pieces in there the first time around.


The key to this is making sure the chicken is still very warm, to make it easier on your mixer.  Cold or refrigerated chicken will not work as well.  I locked down my mixer and decided to go slow, at the lower setting and kind of pulsed it, to make sure chicken wasn't going to explode all over the kitchen.


After a few pulses I realized it was going to work, and increased the speed a little bit.
Shredded chicken in the KitchenAid mixer... hey that worked pretty good!
After a very short amount of time, I had beautiful shredded chicken!


It was a bit finer than if I had done it by hand.  More like what a professional restaurant might use.   Now it is ready to use in whatever recipe you want!  I happened to use this in my chicken enchilada recipe, which I will post about very soon.  Thanks and enjoy!

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Peppermint Ice Cream

When you think cool and delicious treat, my first thought is of a frosty Peppermint ice cream.  Only trouble is, they only offer it as a specialty ice cream in the dead of winter.  Now I totally get that candy canes and Christmastime go hand in hand, but shouldn't your most invigorating flavor be marketed during those hot times of the year when you need the most relief? Come to think of it, peppermint the actual candy has never been a favorite of mine...but somehow, when you freeze it with sugar and cream it suddenly becomes this magical concoction that just hits the spot.  Now that we have our 2-quart ice cream maker and it's mid summer, I was so excited to defy the ice cream marketing gurus and make my own personal Christmas in July!

Merry ho ho ho to me!
Here's what you will need:

Ingredients:

2 3/4 cups cold milk
3 1/2 cups heavy cream
1  cup of sugar
2  teaspoons peppermint extract
6+ drops of neon pink food coloring (optional)
1 cup crushed peppermint candy

Put some peppermint candies into a zip top plastic bag and to be safe, but that bag in another bag, just to ensure the broken candy won't leak out.  Make sure to squeeze out all the air or you will have a large minty explosion on your hands.  Using a rolling pin or other large heavy object, crush enough candy to measure out to 1 full cup.  Don't smash them into power all the way, try and keep small sized chunks here or there for added texture in your ice cream.



Put the whole milk and sugar into a bowl and mix with an electric mixer for 1-2 minutes until the sugar is completely dissolved. Pour in the heavy cream and stir together.  Add the 2 tsp of peppermint extract and the 6 drops of food coloring (optional) until every thing is just mixed together.


Pour your mixed ingredients into your 2-quart ice cream maker

Be sure to freeze your inner canister for a good 12-24 hours for the best results before adding ingredients
Turn your machine on and put in the paddle and attach the lid.  Set a timer for 22 minutes.  There is a large hole at the top of the lid (for adding things at the end) we tend to place an oven mitt gently over the opening to help keep things super cold in there.  After 20 minutes pour in the crushed candies into the mix and let it blend together for 5 more minutes.


It's pretty much at a soft serve stage right now, and you can eat it if you want (I won't deny the urge to stick a spoon in here and sample all the minty goodness is a hard one to suppress).  But we like to freeze it for at least 6 hours and sometimes over night to get that really great scoopable ice cream feel.


We love serving them in the little mini cones (baby cones my girls call them) and they make the perfect little after dinner treat!  I don't know what it is, but when the peppermint candy sits around in the cream for a while, it starts to get this gooey outer coating that is fun to suck on before crunching into the harder part of the candy.  Love it.  Printable recipe here.  I hope you are enjoying our collection of ice cream recipes for the Cuisinart 2-quart ice cream machine.  I had a hard time finding a big list of recipes out there, as most of them are for the 1 1/2 quart machine.  This recipe we made up ourselves and there are more to come!  We just did a banana caramel swirl chocolate chunk, and a double chocolate covered cherry chip as well, so stay tuned.  More good recipes on the way!  What's your all time favorite ice cream?  Is there are recipe or flavor combination you think we should try?  We are always up for experimenting!  :)

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Killer Steak Sandwich

One of my favorite things is to maximize leftovers.  The other night we made my delicious Teriyaki London broil (click for recipe here) and we had a hunk of the meat left over. Normally I'd make it into a lunch for Mr. D to take to work, but that same day we were given several loaves of really good french bread that I wanted to use up.  I decided I should make it into some kind of steak sandwich and I wanted it to have a lot of flavor and not be dry. This is what I came up with.


First I took a loaf of the french bread and cut it length wise.  I buttered both sides lightly and put it under the broiler for a few seconds, just to melt the butter a bit and crisp up the edges of the bread.  Then I remembered I had some left over veggie dip I took to a party the day before that might actually be good on this sandwich:

Lipton Savory Herb and Garlic dry soup mix (1 packet)
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise  
1/2 cup plain yogurt

The beauty of the dry soup mix is that you can add almost any creamy liquid, and all you really need is about 2 cups, or 16oz of it.  So if you only have sour cream on hand you can use 2 cups of that.  If you want it low fat, you can use that.  I happened to accidentally buy plain yogurt instead of vanilla (my middle child was especially displeased) and wanted to use it up as quickly as possible, so I reduced the mayo and added some yogurt.  If you do make this dip from the start you will have way more than you need for one loaf of bread, so save it and use it on veggies or as a bread dip for another time.  Or if you are using it for several loaf sandwiches for a crowd then you are good to go.

I forgot to take pictures of this next part, but I slathered the herb/garlic dip on one side of the french bread.  I chopped up all the left over teriyaki flank steak (or whatever hunk of left over meat you want to use) into small cubes and sprinkled it liberally all over the other side of the bread (the side with just melted butter on it).  I covered the meat with some thick slices of cheddar cheese and a sprinkling of some left over mozzarella for good measure.

I know it looks like I might of gone over zealous with the cheese layer as it came oozing out in places, but in my defense,  I cut it when it was still pretty hot and the cheese all squished in one direction for the first slice.  It got better after that.
So once I had both sides ready to go (one side with the herb garlic spread and the other side with the chopped up meat covered with cheese), I just turned the oven on to bake at 350º and cooked them open faced until the cheese was all melted. (I suppose you could probably just broil it for a few minutes too, but keep an eye on it.  Every time I broil something I tend to get distracted with other food prep and the whole thing burns in an instant).  Baking gives you a few extra minutes to chop up a fruit salad or veggies to go on the side.  
Once you think every thing is good and melty, take it out of the oven and carefully (I used oven mitts) put the two sides of the sandwich together on a cutting board.  After that you can slice them into big wedges with a bread knife.


Let me tell you, that savory herb and garlic spread really gave this sandwich a gourmet va-va voom flavor.  Like something you'd pay $12 for at a fancy pub.  The slight sweetness of the teriyaki sauce mixed with the garlic herbs in a really compatible way. I was very pleased how this one turned out.  It was a great way to extend the amount of people you could feed with a small hunk of left over meat, and in such a delicious fashion.  


So it looks like now we have a new family favorite to add to the rotation.  My only trouble now will be trying to save another hunk of London broil the next time I make it, as it usually disappears faster than if I had thrown it to a pack of ravenous wolves.  Printable recipe found here:  So how do you normally like your steak sandwich?  Thanks and Enjoy! 

Friday, July 13, 2012

Decorate Clear Plastic Storage Drawers

A few years back my girls were down stairs opening gifts on Christmas morning when suddenly, they heard jingle bells! They ran upstairs to find Santa had left them a pink kitchen in their room!  They were so excited.  It was so realistic my youngest immediately tried to wash her hands in the sink and was shocked when no water came out. So cute.  Soon our little kitchen was overrun with piles of pretend fruits that spilled out onto the floor. Veggies, bowls, plates, and lovely little desserts that numbered so many that not even the mini shopping cart could hold them all. There was not any "counter space" to speak of where you could put the toaster and hand mixer and whip up imaginary culinary delights either, as the set just came with a pink fridge and a stove/sink unit.  I decided we needed some storage drawers to hold all the food and accessories in, and at the same time would also add the much needed counter space.  I went and bought some simple Sterilite storage drawers, and they looked so plain and drab next to the bright pink kitchen I knew I wanted to gussy them up.  I bought a 12x12 scrap book bundle in some coordinating colors to their room, and this is what I did:

Cute pink kitchen.  I always wanted one of these when I was a kid!
As you can see, it really turned this corner into a full kitchen area with plenty of "counter space".  We have a little white Ikea table with two chairs (not pictured) to the left to complete the dining area.  The drawers are completely chalked full of food, but the scrap book paper covers most of it up and makes it look nice and neat. If you want to see a side view of what the sets of drawers looks like, here's a different angle:

It really gives it a finished look!  The only thing I needed was to cut the scrap book paper to fit the drawers.  This was a little tricky at first.  Once I had a template made out to the right sizes, I used that to trace the other matching drawer sizes.  The gingham pattern really helped in this aspect, as I could match of numbers of lines.  The extra wide drawer set I used two pages together to make it extra long.  I lined up the pattern so it would look almost seamless.  After that I used strong double stick tape (long pieces that covered entire edges to try and hide the "taped" look) to attach the paper to the inside of the plastic drawers.  When you are looking at it you do not see big strips of tape.  I was very happy how it turned out.  By the way, the front of the drawers were a bit trickier than the sides.  The sides are flat and very easy to piece together.  The handle posed a curved/indented problem, so I only ran the paper up to where the handle started.


As far as durability, I wasn't sure how paper and tape would hold up with three busy girls and a lot of play cooking going on.  But I am pleased to say I did this project over 4 years ago and they have held up beautifully.  I think it helps to really seal the edges as close to the plastic as possible so there is nothing sticking out to catch on and rip.  Also I LOVE the versatility of this.  You can use this technique for cute storage in school classrooms, home offices, kid rooms, teen rooms, play kitchens, any where you have plain storage bins.  We'll make the world a cuter place one drawer at a time!

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Chocolate Chewy Brownie - mix

If you are a Costco shopper like I am, there are great many things you can buy in gigantic quantities.  Who really needs 20 gallons of mayonnaise?  To this day I'm still not quite sure.  However; one of the best things that was ever invented for bulk consumption by far is the six-pack, triple chocolate chunk Ghiradelli brownie mix.  


The only trouble is, both of their recipes on the back make pans of big soft cakey fall-apart brownies, which could be technically classified as an "abomination" in my book.  I have found a way to take the same brownie mix but turn them into fudgy, chewy, stupendous, slap your grandma type brownies. Brownies people at parties will ask you the recipe for. Brownies you'll be tempted to eat the entire pan by yourself standing at the stove while they still cooling. Feast your eyes upon this:

You need an ice cold glass of milk just looking at this, don't you.
I'm not sure what the fine people at Ghiradelli are thinking, other than their ultimate sinister goal would be for you to use twice as much brownie mix as you actually need.  The first recipe puts an entire mix into a small 9x9 pan (which equals cakey brownies) and the second recipe makes you put two full bags into a 9x13 pan (again making them thick and cakey).  Boo.  Do not be a lemming.  Follow me.  Here's what I do:


Take 1 bag of brownie mix, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup of oil, and 2 Tablespoons water.  Mix together gently with a spoon.  My mom once told me to only stir brownies about 40 times and not to over-mix. My girls love counting to 40 with me.  What's not to love about education and chocolate holding hands?  That's right, nothing.  Make sure the ingredients are incorporated together well.


Spray a 9x13 pan with some cooking spray.  That's right, take that Ghiradelli people, one package and (gasp) a 9x13 pan, what are you gonna do about it?  Are the gourmet chocolate police on their way?? You going to lock me up in a chocolate prison?  Oh... wait.. that sounds nice.  Can you lick the walls there?  Well let's do that. I digress.. Where was I?  Oh yes, my contraband 9x13 pan...
.

Spread out the thick mixture in a sprayed (Ghiradelli defiant) 9x13 pan.  It will seem like it might not be enough to cover the bottom but trust me, it oozes and spreads out just fine if you go nice and slow.  After that, pop it in the oven at 350º for 30 minutes.  That's it.  What comes out is thin and fudgy, and triple chocolatey goodness.  And the corners?  Well I could write sonnets about the corners.  They are my favorite part.  They get all chunky and sometimes you have to work really hard to chew them (technically it burns more calories that way, don't you love my logic).  I love corners so much that once I bought a pan that was all corners. Hey, speaking of fuzzy logic, or fuzzy math.  If you make the brownies this way, you will get 6 full pans out of one box of brownies (If you wanted to make 9x13 pans their way, you'd only get three total)

chocolatey goodness in every bite!
So next time you are at Costco, pick up a box of these.  They are so easy to whip up in under an hour, great to bring to any gathering. I have totally memorized the easy ingredients and cook time/temp and can crack these out for any last minute get together with friends.  Top with powdered sugar (when cooled), or serve along side a scoop of chocolate chip mint ice cream.  For my brother's birthday a few days back we topped the whole pan with whip cream and doused it with fresh raspberries and blueberries (see more healthy stuff) and it was absolutely delicious. So get out there and defy the Ghiradelli big wigs and start enjoying your fudgy chewy brownies today!

Sunday, July 08, 2012

Orange Julius Slushies - Ice cream machine

Well, local Washingtonians are not going to fully believe it, but I am here to announce summer is official here! (Step aside Steve Poole).  Most long-time webbed-foot dwellers around these parts know that we don't see the really great weather until after the 4th of July.  Seeing that today is July 8th we are right on time.  One look at the extended 3-week forecast with nothing but happy suns and no clouds to speak of, with highs in the nice and mild 80's is nothing short of a Christmas miracle.  Especially after two rainy La Nina patterns back to back that lasted two long years.  Our girls spent the entire day today happily in the sun.  Besides soaking up some much needed vitamin D, they spent time playing in the back yard, running through sprinklers, splashing in the kiddie pool, catching frogs, and  watching butterflies.
Some of the marvelous creatures found in our backyard today
I was thinking of cracking out our new 2 quart Cuisinart ice cream maker but I knew we didn't have enough heavy cream needed to make a new batch, so I perused the pages and found you can make a number of slushies and frosty beverages in there too.  This is what we decided to try: Orange Julius Slushies



We happened to have the few ingredients needed on hand so we thought we would give it a whirl.  You will need:

Ingredients:

12-16oz Orange juice concentrate (thawed)
2 cups water
1/3 cups sugar
2 cups (1 can) coconut milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tsp vanilla

Put 2 cups of water in a bowl and add the 1/3 cup of sugar.  Stir until disolved


Once the sugar is dissolved.  Add the OJ and the can of coconut milk (plus the 1/2 cup heavy cream) and stir again.  By the way, the original recipe called for 2 1/2 cups of coconut milk and we discovered one can is only 2 cups.  So that is why we added 1/2 cup of heavy cream to make up the liquid difference. You could also use regular milk.  The original recipe also called for 12 oz of OJ, but our Costco sized juice was 16 oz and we just added a smidge extra of water so it wasn't too sweet.


Mix all ingredients together and add the 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract


Pour into your chilled inner compartment for your machine and let it go for 20 minutes.


Once you are done, pour a number of frothy glasses of pure orangy goodness.  We topped ours with whip cream and a cherry.  Mostly because it's America and we can do what we want.


This was a nice, thick and creamy treat.  Even thicker than even, dare I say, the actual Orange Julius you might get in the mall, almost more of a milk shake consistency.  We were surprised the coconut milk gave it that perfect hint of "something" that made it very julius-esque.  Hubby was thrilled the Cuisinart had chilled some of the mixture near the edges into almost an ice cream you could scoop. Very cool (literally).  So here's three cheers and a toast to summer time!
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