Cuisinart Elite 4-cup Chopper

The internet has been good to me. I have made some of my best friends, re-connected with old friends, and let's not forget the time the internet saved my ass when the Bad Man pulled that violent crap, took all our money and left the kids and me in a horrible pickle.

But when a friend gave me this shiny new toy -a very dear friend who I met on the internet, saved my ass in many ways, and also knows that when I am worried or stressed I like to bake- I was very excited.

Look....shiny....pretty.....new.... and most importantly, not broken like my other (smaller) one which I forced to die a horrible death while chopping bittersweet chocolate even though it resisted. Whoops. My bad. So...don't chop up thick bittersweet chocolate bars in your mini-pro-chopper. You're welcome.

Not wanting to abuse it on it's first time out of the box, I decided to make key lime bars. Why? Because yet another internet re-connection (high school friend from across the country) had sent me some delicious key lime juice and I wanted to expand beyond pie.



I based the recipe on a classic key lime pie, but wanted a substantial graham cracker crust for the first layer of the bars. I was pretty sure the Cuisinart Elite 4-cup (yeah, you heard me - FOUR CUPS) Chopper was up to the task of crushing graham crackers.

Key Lime Bars
First layer- combine:


1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
5 -6 Tbsp melted butter
1/3 cup brown sugar

Press in to an 8x8 square pan and bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.

Key Lime Bars
Second Layer - Pour into your Mini Cuisinart and mix well:

3 egg yolks
1/2 cup key lime juice
1 can of sweetened condensed milk.

Pour over the graham cracker crust and bake at 350 for 10 minutes, until filling is firmly set.

Do you see that? The second picture, where the blade is not falling out to slice of my unsuspecting thumb wreck the filling? See? This is the best mini food processor ever, based on that fact alone. First impressions are important.

Let's have a closer look:
Cuisinart, I love you. Thank you for figuring that one out. Thank you for locking the razor sharp blade onto the work bowl when I dump out the contents.
Seriously.
BladeLock System?
I want to speak to that product design person and then kiss them.


Key Lime Bars
Third Layer - Combine in your mini Cuisinart:

1Tbsp softened butter or cream cheese
2 Tbsp key lime juice
1/2 cup confectioners (powdered) sugar

Blend together and add enough milk or half and half to make it about as thick as pancake batter.
Pour over the cooled key lime bars, chill until set.



Thanks, Grace!

Jif Omega-3 Awesomeness in a Jar

My son has Apraxia. It's a neuro-processing and oral motor coordination affliction which manifests in the form of a speech delay. I have been giving him DHA supplements for approximately 23 months, roughly the same amount of time he has been in speech therapy.
He is sick of the funny tasting fishy DHA gummy supplements, only eats one certain flavor of the gel caps, and woe is me if I forget which flavor. Because I am out another $20.
Another challenge for us is that Bubbles will only eat about 12 foods. So finding the correct and ample sources for DHA is a challenge. Luckily, one of the foods he will eat, is peanut butter.

So, when a rep from Jif contacted me, asking if I would like to try out their new Jif Omega-3 peanut butter, I jumped on the chance! I even tweeted that this peanut butter could possible change the world. At least, my world. The only question remaining was: Would he eat it?

The package came, looking identical to other Jif jars, but for the bright green lid identifying the brain cell enhancers inside the jar ready to do their stuff.
The ingredients looked suspect: anchovy oil? sardine oil? Oh sure, they claimed to be 'tasteless sources of DHA' but even I have burped up fish oil when the source was 'tasteless' going down. Truthfully, I doubt that I would have taken the chance on the jar of peanut butter with fish oil listed in the ingredients. But because Smuckers loves poor single writing mothers knows how to woo a mommy who happens to be a blogger, I didn't have to buy this jar. They sent me one for Apraxia Boy, when I told them how I had been feeding him Omega 3s in various forms.

First thing I made was nutty buddies. Take some rice/corn/wheat chex-style cereal coat it in peanut butter, melted chocolate, and powdered sugar (which my kids have no idea is cut with a 50% blend of vanilla protein powder), and my kids will eat it. They sucked it down like anteaters. But straight peanut butter was going to be the true test.
Even I would eat fish peanut butter with chocolate in it, right?
I kept sniffing the jar for fish smells.
Nothing but peanuts. Seriously yummy smelling, and I finally couldn't resist. I sniffed, grabbed a spoon, and surfed in.
This stuff is good.
I mean, really good.
And I am picky. Almost as picky as my kids.
I swallowed, waiting for the fishy after taste and burps.
Nothing.
No fish.
(I confess, I did eventually burp, but it was a very peanutty burp!)
I slapped that Jif on some bread and tossed into the bentos the next day.
One child likes jam and the other one thinks jam is a tool of the devil so he got the straight stuff.
I am pleased to report that only the crusts came back!!
Two tablespoons of Jif Omega-3 Peanut Butter provide a combined total of 32mg of DHA and EPA. You can easily get 2 Tablespoons on a sandwich.

Oh, and thank you, Jif, for not putting high fructose corn syrup in my kids' peanut butter!

We give it a six thumbs up from this family of three.

Johnson's Head to Toe Foaming Wash

I am a sucker for that Johnson's Baby smell.

Like a comfort food, I know that there are other products out there now, maybe products which claim to be better, wash better, smell better, wash more gently, etc., but I like the smell of original J&J shampoo and soap.
So when the awesome and psychic ladies at Mom Central asked me to write about Johnson's baby products, I squeed. (Squeed: v. Compound word make up of 'squealed' and 'agreed'.)

I remember my own bottle of No More Tears shampoo on the side of the tub in the seventies - it was my bottle alone, because my two older brothers and one pre-teen sister weren't going to be caught using 'baby shampoo'.

My daughter (7) is a fish, so getting her in the tub and covering her with soap has never been a struggle. But my son (3) is more selective, and must be lured into the tub with just the correct assortment of dinosaurs, submarines, and measuring cups.
So when I handed my daughter the new foaming hair and body wash from Johnson & Johnson, she immediately lathered up with the extra thick foam, transforming herself into a kewpie doll with a long white beard, and demanded a mirror.
And my son, watching this with great interest, screamed, "I want some! I want some on my head!!"
(And I evilly thought to myself, 'Woman, you deserve some wine! This review is going to write itself!')
And sure enough, it did.


My three year old son hates to have his hair washed.
He asked for Johnson's foaming shampoo on his head.
He laughed.
There were no tears.
He loved it.
The end.

What Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hand? My Kids Faces! On My M&M's.

Mom Central offered me the opportunity to try out some custom M&M's, through MyM&Ms.com and I am never one to turn down chocolate.

I was very excited to get these for my mother and my MIL; since we weren't going to make the 3000 mile trek back east this year, it seemed like a whimsical substitute to offer them edible faces of my children instead.

Ordering proved to be somewhat of a challenge. Their website does not save information, even after creating an account, so it was frustrating to have to upload the same photos repeatedly.
The good news is that this is ultimately correctable, and easily improved upon (I did suggest the hire dh, web designer extraordinaire, but no response to that one) if they put in the effort.

Eventually, I was put in touch with a representative who took my information and jpegs via email, so we could expedite the order.
These are custom made, so order with plenty of time to spare before your estimated time of candy needs.
The first thing that impressed me was the amazing array of 22 colors available from MyM&Ms.com! It is like every shade of every holiday M&M color ever made, available to you in a rainbow of shiny candies on the screen.
I got to choose three colors for my custom M&M's, as I had chosen the photo upload option, which allowed me two messages and two photos. I was going for a traditional holiday theme for the grandmothers, so I chose red, white, and green, but it felt like a boring choice to me when I had all those other colors from which to choose
The final product is fun enough that I thought it outweighed the ordering glitches.


I would stick with light colors - as you can see, the white ones printed the best quality picture, but pastels would work just as well. I suggest you stay away from red, as the faces were most difficult to make out when printed on that color.

I have some doubts that the faces we sent to the grandmothers will actually get eaten, but I tried. We of course, had to try them - for quality control purposes - and they taste exactly like M&M's! Because, you know they are. My adorable babies' faces may have made them taste just a little sweeter.

Personally, I prefer the peanut M&M's. I guess they don't print well on the lumpy ones. I can see why though, because I had a hard enough time getting them to hold still and stop spinning long enough to take a picture, I can only imagine how difficult it must be to hold those little guys down and paint each one. (I kid!)

This was a great novelty to send to our relatives - the most fun in giving this gift was the surprise when they realized just why those M&M's were so special!