Easy (and healthy!) Toddler Ice Cream

Ok, I was trying to come up with a way to make smoothies for my toddler the other day while working around her food allergies. You can find the recipe for the smoothies I usually make at home right here.

B is allergic to bananas and she is lactose intolerant (hopefully just for now!). So that rules out the bananas and yogurt that I use for the smoothies, and there is no lactose-free yogurt in Ecuador. There is, however, lactose-free milk. So that got my wheels turning.

(On a side-note, this is SO easy, you could adjust it for your own toddler allergies, like using soy, almond or coconut milk, or just use regular milk for a toddler with no milk allergy. You can use different fruits and juices, too. I´d love to hear what you come up with!)

So here´s what you need:

 Frozen lactose-free milk (or whatever milk you want to use), frozen in an ice tray

 Frozen Strawberries (or any other frozen fruit you choose)

A very small amount of fruit juice (I used apricot nectar, you can use anything you like)

 Put your ingredients together in a blender or food processor. For my almost two-year-old, I used 3 cubes of milk, about 5 or 6 strawberry slices, and a tiny amount of juice (maybe a teaspoon?)

That´s it! Spoon into a bowl a serve immediately!

I told you it was easy! One tip: it melts fairly quickly, and then will be more of a smoothie consistency. (If you have an independent kiddo that insists on feeding herself, it will melt. B doesn´t seem to mind, though!)

I call this toddler ice cream, but I´m thinking of making a bunch for me! It´s so good you´ll want to just stick your face in it!

Super Easy and Yummy Smoothies

Every Friday, my husband fasts and does not join us for breakfast, so it´s my easy day. For B I make easy peasy toddler ice cream, and for myself I make a smoothie. This particular recipe is oh so easy, quick and yummy!

Here´s what you need (for one adult):

1 Banana (frozen if you like your smoothies thick)
About a cup of frozen strawberries
About 1/2 cup of yogurt (natural or flavored, you decide)
About 1/2 cup of milk

Put the dry ingredients in the blender: (Mine is dirty because I made B´s ice cream first)

Add yogurt. (Yogurt in Ecuador is all drinkable yogurt. Mine is apricot. Very tangy!)

Add milk.

Blend.

Drink.

Easy!!

Oatmeal Creme Pies

While my niece is staying here for a week or so, and she was begging me to teach her to make cookies. (Baking is not a very common skill here in Ecuador.) I had been wanting to try to make homemade oatmeal cream pies, because they don´t have them here and I was craving them, so I decided we´d make those together as her first cookie experience. It was fun! My mother-in-law even joined in!

 I looked up the recipe, but I used this recipe for the marshmallow fluff. It came out a little more runny that the store-bought kind, but it tasted the same. And we dyed the marshmallow fluff green.

The only change we made was that we made homemade corn syrup. My niece had never used food coloring before! (I know, what do these children DO all day?!? Ha.)

They were a big hit with everyone. Even Jairo. And that´s saying something, because he´s generally a party-pooper when it comes to sweets. They weren´t really too much like the store-bought kind, but they were good!

It was fun to spend some ¨girl time¨, and even more fun because I was the only one who had really ever baked before, so it was funny to watch them learn and try things. It made me wish Bella were a little older so we could do those things together, but that time will come!