Category Archives: Food & Drink

Melon Mint Granita

July 1, 2011

When temperatures reach 100 F here in Cali, I only want to eat COLD things. Last summer I made some Granitas – Maui Mango Ginger and Nectarine Mint . This year I am trying Honeydew Melon with fresh mint.

Melon Mint Granita

1/4 of a ripe Honeydew Melon, pealed and cut into chunks

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup sugar

Juice of one fresh lemon

2 tsp. mint

Combine all ingredients in a blender and puree. Pour into a 8″ glass pan. Freeze for at least 2 1/2 hours, scraping it with a fork every hour. Mixture should be frozen, but fluffy.

What do you like to eat when it’s too hot to cook?

etc. / Food & Drink

Robot Birthday Party – Part III (The Food)

June 15, 2011

I love coming up with themed food for birthday parties. Here’s what we served at Dylan’s Party.

I used Martha’s recipe for nuts and bolts. It’s super yummy and used fresh garlic and rosemary. I served the nuts and bolts at the table and also packaged them up for the kids to take home as well.

I filled this bucket with Chocolate Robot Pops. I found the mold on amazon for less the $5. They were surprisingly easy to make.

To drink, we served “Motor Oil” (Sparkling Peach Lemonade) in glass bottles with cute grey and white striped paper straws.

I always feel like I should serve my guests a real meal, not just cake and snacks. Dylan loves to cook, so we each made our own Robot Shaped Pizza. I made the pizza crusts ahead of time and then just had toppings cut and ready for the kids to top their Robot Pizzas. I think they really enjoyed making their own lunch.

I also like to have a little candy bar for the kids. It’s a fun way to add decoration to the table in the color theme and the kids LOVE scooping their own candy into bags.

Finally, in an attempt to offer something healthy at a party, I had orange slices and green grapes (plus they went with my color theme quite nicely).

etc. / Food & Drink

Robot BIrthday Party – Part I (The Cake)

June 8, 2011

To celebrate my son Dylan’s 8th birthday, we had a robot themed party. We chose grey and orange for the colors, I’ll share some of the party details over the next week. The details are my favorite part of planning a party. To start, this is the cake, we named him Robo.

I struggled to mix grey buttercream. In the past, I have tried to make grey icing and it usually ends up being a light purplish color. You would think that adding black food coloring gel would make grey – wrong. With a little google researching, I found that others had experimented with adding a little yellow to the black as well. I tried this, and I worked! I’m really happy with the grey I achieved.

I made three rectangular cakes for the base of this cake. One for the head, one for the body and one for the arms, ears and legs.