A Last Hurrah To Summer...Dairy Free Fudgesicles!

We went to Emily's 1st grade orientation on Wednesday. It was so kind of the PTA to welcome everyone back to school with fudgesicles (that was sarcasm)! If it had been cookies I could have brought some along but popsicles don't travel well, especially on the half hour walk it takes us to get there. I promised Emily that I would try to make fudgsicles for her when we got home. My plan was to use coconut milk like my dear friend Melanie at "A Foodies Fall From Grace"
(http://mjennings26.wordpress.com/
2008/07/26/gluten-free-vegan-popsicles-that-taste-good/),
but when I got home I found that my one can of coconut milk had vanished...no one knows where it went! At this point the promise of fudgsicles had already been made so we moved on to soy milk. I have to say these turned out amazingly like the real thing. They are a little less sweet (agave or more sugar could be added), but the texture is smooth and creamy. Really good! Amanda decided to go with an abstract photo...a fudgesicle defying gravity...I like it!!!


1 1/2 c. Soy milk
1/2 c. Chocolate syrup (I used Hershey's)
2 t. Powdered sugar
2 t. Guar gum

Mix the soy milk and the chocolate syrup in a container with a pour spout. Sift the powdered sugar and guar gum together to remove all lumps. Slowly sprinkle the sugar/guar gum mixture into the chocolate soy milk while whisking like crazy! This is of course to avoid lumps (which is also the reason for combining the sugar and guar gum). I haven't tried making this in a blender but it might be worth a try and may eliminate the clumping problem. If anyone tries it please let me know if it works. Pour the mixture into popsicle molds. if you don't have popsicle molds there is always the classic ice cube tray covered in tin foil with toothpicks stuck through the top (yes, my mother did that). Freeze until solid and enjoy!!!
Now let's go sit on the porch and eat our fudgesicles in the gentle warm breeze... ahhhhh...
in a month this porch will be covered in snow.

My Summer!

I don't know where the summer has gone! My father-in-law informed me the other day that it had been 21 days since my last post (I guess it's been longer than that now). I have just been so busy with dental appts and orthodontic appts and doctors appts... that seems to have been my whole summer. I haven't had time to cook, much less develope new recipes or write about them. On that note, however, I thought that instead of posting a recipe this time I would write a little bit about the goings on around here. My aunt recently told me that she would like to see more about my family in my blog (BTW I finally found Diane's blog and enjoyed reading it so much!). I'm not much of a writer so generally I tend to steer clear of storytelling, but here's a quick update.

Amanda is 15 now. She passed drivers ed at the beginning of the summer and will be driving me around by this time next year (yay)! She's been very busy doing homework lately (summer homework, can you imagine?!), preparing for the honors and AP classes she will be taking this year. The braces are off and we love her beautiful smile. The tragedy of our summer, however, is that Amanda broke her collar bone while longboarding, and of course I HAVE TO post her x-ray!

She is healing, but because they can't put a cast on it and the doctors don't want to do surgery the bone is going to heal overlapped and with a lump. The other tragedy is that amidst the shuffle of trying to get her home after the accident her camera was lost. My regular readers may know that Amanda does most of my photography, so we are going to have to invest in a new one very soon!

Nikki is now 12, she will be 13 in November. It has been a big orthodontic year for her also. Two weeks after Amanda got her braces off, Nikki got hers on. Nikki's summer has been pretty mellow (although she has three friends spending the night tonight). She took a beginning tap class and will be taking another in the fall. We found out that the school boundaries have been changed and, although we have not moved, Nikki will have to attend a different middle school this year than she was at last year. This has been a little traumatic, but she seems to be OK with it now. Nikki saved up her own money to buy herself a camera this summer and it arrived a few weeks ago. She is having a great time with it... it's purple!

Emily...oh Emily! Emily is 6. She is full of imagination and energy. I couldn't really tell you what she's been doing all summer, but I know she's been busy! She doesn't have a lot of friends, partly because of her food allergies (people are too nervous to have her at their houses), and partly because I don't drive and that makes playdates more difficult. Her best friend up the street moved away a few weeks ago and she has been very bored and lonely. Still though, never in one place for very long. She has been putting on shows for me, singing and dancing. She has also been doing lots of arts and crafts. She took a tap and ballet combo class this summer and enjoyed it, but she doesn't like to pay attention so I don't think we'll be doing it again. Emily also had major dental work done this summer (oh, the teeth in this family!). She had three of her front teeth pulled. She will be starting first grade in a few weeks and is very excited.

As far as family stuff goes, Glenn has just been working, working, working...gotta pay for all those dr/dent/ortho appointments!!! I have no idea where my days go, but I know there's never time to sit down. We didn't have a "vacation" this year but we did have a really fun camping trip. We stayed in a tee pee and the girls played in the lake. Emily caught her first fish. (Actually...Emily caught 6, Glenn caught 1) I hope this has given everyone a nice little glimpse into our lives. This is probably the only post of it's kind I will ever do. I wish everyone an absolutely wonderful end of the summer. We love you all...family, friends, and food allergy ridden cyber acquaintances!