One thing that I look forward to every summer is diving into a freshly cut cantaloupe. Although I would much rather eat a honeydew melon, I eat cantaloupe on account of my grandmother. Every year my grandmother had the hook up on the cantaloupes. Being the hoochie-hoe that my grandmother was she always made friends with men. My mother and I used to joke about how she was always flirting, my grandmother had no shame. One particular year she made “friends” with her hairdressers husband. He drove a fruit truck that just so happened to be cantaloupes. Every year she would hit this man up for as many cantaloupes she could get into the trunk of her car. And of course being the flirt that she was, she would get all of these cantaloupes for free! So every summer my grandmother and I would live on the diet of free cantaloupes. For some reason the cantaloupes my grandmother seemed to muster out of the man were always the best cantaloupes. And to this day I am still unable to pick a cantaloupe like my grandmother could.

Every year when the cantaloupes are in season, I run to the store and get a few just to remember my grandmother by. Cantaloupes were “our thing”. Even though the ones that I pick up are not nearly as good as the ones grandma would get, they still make me think of her and that is my goal whenever I eat a cantaloupe.

So thank you grandma for instilling this awesome tradition with me. I will continue to keep this tradition alive even though you have since left us to go to a better place.

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One of my favorite indulgences, well favorite dessert for that matter is “Dirt Dessert”. I have been making this special treat since I was a kid. It really brings back tons of memories for me. I have a fetish for oreos. Me and Oreos go way back! We are happy together. I have at least one oreo oriented thing a day whether it be in dessert form like this, in a pie, a bowl of ice cream, or just with a glass of milk. Its my thing. Oreos keep me calm. They are my reward for a long day of parenting. They are always eaten just after the kidlets have been put to sleep. My mommy time is best shared with oreos. And now I am sharing my secret recipe with YOU!

Ingredients:
1 pkg Oreos, crushed
1 box of vanilla instant pudding
1 tub of Cool Whip
6 oz. fat free cream cheese
3 tbsp softened non-hydrogenated butter
1 cup Organic Fat Free Milk

Directions:
Whip together vanilla pudding, cream cheese, milk, and butter with an electric hand mixer. Once smooth, fold in Cool Whip.

In a glass bowl or serving dishes, layer cookies and pudding mixture ending with cookies on the top. Cover and chill for two hours before enjoying!

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A long time reader of mine, Alex, sent me an email today that I couldn’t help but share with you. In the email it included this hilarious video of Mike Alto. I haven’t heard of Mike Alto before today but I can tell you that he is now one of my favorite youtube peoples. I love his play on words in this skit at a Total Foods store.

After you watch the video above you need to go check out his skit on yoga. So funny!!!

Thanks for the laughs this morning, Alex…YOU ROCK!

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I wanted an all veg spaghetti sauce to use whenever I make spaghetti so this is what I have come up with…

Ingredients:
1 purple onion diced
1/2 yellow pepper diced
1/2 green pepper diced
1/2 red pepper diced
4 vine ripened tomatoes diced
2 tbsp olivia (olive oil butter)
1 can of organic diced tomatoes
1 can of tomato paste
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp chili powder
2 tbsp organic brown sugar

Directions:
Combine vine ripened tomatoes, onion, peppers, and olivia in a sauce pot. Cook until onions are translucent and peppers are soft. Add the rest of the ingredients. Cover and simmer for 2-3 hours on low-medium heat.

If you do not like chunky sauces you can puree the sauce in a blender or with a stick blender once cooking is complete.

I typically pair this sauce with Ronzoni Smart Taste Thin Spaghetti Noodles.

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We often times get frozen pizzas and make them at home on a Friday night. We make them ourselves because it is cheaper than delivery. So this is what we do to your typical frozen pizza to make it “more better”.

Spinach Pizza
1 Frozen Cheese Pizza
1 Tsp Olive Oil
1 Tsp butter
1 Tbsp Minced Organic Garlic
1/2 cup Frozen Spinach
2 Tbsp Feta Cheese

In a small pan, cook spinach, garlic, olive oil, and butter together until spinach is thaw. Spread spinach mixture on top of frozen cheese pizza. Top with Feta Cheese and back according to package directions.

Basically the idea of this recipe is that you can take an ordinary frozen cheese pizza and turn it into something that you will totally love with fresh ingredients that you have on hand at your house.

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Pancakes are a favorite breakfast food in the Diva household but for me personally I hate the taste of a boxed mix. It is just so plain and boring so here are a few tips to turn the boring box pancake mix into fluffy, delicious circles of pancake heaven that your family can’t resist.

Here is the recipe I made for the pancakes you see in the photo

1 cup Aunt Jemima pancake mix
3/4 cup water
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp organic sugar

Whip it up and cook pancakes like you normally would. You can adapt this recipe to any of your favorite boxed pancake mixes. Follow the directions on any box of pancake mix and add the last 3 ingredients (egg, vanilla extract, and sugar) to make your pancakes awesome!

Let me know what you think if you make this recipe. What do you do to make your pancakes special? Do you add fresh fruit or chocolate chips? Do you make funny shapes, like mickey mouse? Do you make HUGE pancakes or little silver dollar pancakes? What is your flap jack preference?

One fun fact about the way that I eat my pancakes: I don’t eat pancakes with butter and my syrup has to be on the side for dipping. A soggy pancake is not a good pancake, in my opinion anyway.

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While on the road, driving through Atlanta, we saw a bunch of feathers all over the place. We knew a chicken truck had to be close by and low and behold we caught up to it. Now typically I would see a chicken truck and think nothing of it but after trying to convert my diet to vegetarian I have a different kind of heart for these things.

You see that little fellow poking his head through the crate? Poor little chicken. He looked so sad as if he knew he was on his way to be slaughtered. I have this photo on my desktop to remind myself not to eat meat. It is really hard to stick to the fruits and vegetables when you have been eating meat for almost 25 years.

I just can’t get the image out of my mind of those chickens. Most of them looked very sickly, had feathers ripped out of them, some weird thing poked through their nose, poop everywhere…it was just gross. I know that if a chicken is sick I don’t want to be eating it. Seeing the chicken truck first hand has really fueled my fire to stay on my vegetarian diet.

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Well at least we THINK she is pregnant. There was a week last month where there were goo-gobs of male cats all in our yard “courting” little miss Ying. I’m sure the males got their piece a couple of times. So now I have been steady watching Ying get a little tummy on her. So I should expect a litter pretty soon. It will be interesting to see the little kittens and what color they will be. It will probably be followed by a “free kittens” sign in the front of our yard shortly after that because honestly I don’t want fifty million animals hanging around this place. Kittens are cute but then the cuteness fades and they turn into full grown cats. We have to keep our cats outside due to my allergy to their dander so the less of the furry critters there are the better. I will be sure to take lots of photos of the cuteness when they finally arrive.

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I did a little personal experience with my oldest son Pnut who is three years old and his daily intake of television. I noticed my son had started to become too aggressive and would throw fits at the littlest things. He was just plain angry all the time. I started cutting television out of his daily activities to see if it was the trigger for his rage. For a week straight he watched no television and played occasional educational games on the computer. After a week I noticed his behavior had changed tremendously. He no longer walked around the house with a crunchy look on his face, he began playing well with his little brother, and was overall really nice when you would speak to him.

Now we don’t watch anything bad in this house, we are strictly a PBS household. He would watch shows like Curious George, Super Why, Word World, and all the other favorite PBS shows. I wanted to see if television really was his source of “anger” so the following week I allowed him to watch his favorite show “Super Why” and immediately he reverted back to his mean self. I don’t think it is the show itself that is causing the behavior changes but I do think that the commercials they show before and after might have a thing or two to do with it. Super Why has helped Pnut tremendously so I can’t be hard on them but something about television watching is triggering my son to act out and I don’t like it.

So for now we are turning off the tube. As a “special treat” for being good he can watch Super Why once a week but anything more than that I am really hesitant to allow. To occupy his time he can practice writing his letters during craft time, play education games on the computer, or have some good ol’ play time with his little brother with the bazillion toys that we own.

How much television do you allow your child to watch?
Do you think television can trigger a child’s behavior and to act out?
What do you think about my decision?

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What is with that title? “Sumbob Firepants” is the name that Pnut calls “Spongebob Squarepants”. I personally hate the show “Spongebob Squarepants” and don’t really like the kidlets watching it but occasionally when my step-sons are over they play a spongebob game which releases a whole different can of worms. For me I like my children to watch television shows that they can learn stuff from. My favorite show as well as the boys is “Super-Why!”. Pnut has learned so much from Super Why that is absolutely amazing to see him so excited about learning. He often times plays pretend in his room trying to be just like “Super Why”. But for an occasional rainy day “sumbob firepants” would suffice but for everyday learning it is strictly educational television and games at this house.

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