Super Easy Ice Cream and Cookies

I love to cook with my kids. However I do get scared that they will burn themselves on the stove.

To prevent this I try to stick to recipes that are not too complicated and that do not require a lot of fussing with hand appliances. Try the following if you want to please your youngsters.

No-Bake Peanut Butter Cookie

Butterscotch chips
1 cup peanut better
4 to 5 cups corn flakes
1 cup dry roasted peanuts
Coconut flakes
Melt the butterscotch chips and peanut butter together in a large microwave-safe bowl in the microwave. Then stir in 4 to 5 cups of corn flakes and 1 cup of dry roasted peanuts and a handful of shredded coconut. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls on wax paper. Store in an airtight container between layers of wax paper.

Homemade Ice Cream Without An Ice Cream Maker

Did you also know you can make ice cream in quart size bags without an ice cream maker?

Here are the basic ingredients you will need –

/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon sugar
4 cups crushed ice
4 tablespoons salt
2 quart size Zip-loc bags
1 gallon size Zip-loc freezer bag
a hand towel or gloves to keep fingers from freezing as well!

Mix the milk, vanilla and sugar together in one of the quart size bags. Seal tightly, allowing as little air to remain in the bag as possible. Too much air left inside may force the bag open during shaking. Place this bag inside the other quart size bag, again leaving as little air inside as possible and sealing well. By double-bagging, the risk of salt and ice leaking into the ice cream is minimized. Put the two bags inside the gallon size bag and fill the bag with ice, then sprinkle salt on top. Again let all the air escape and seal the bag.

Wrap the bag in the towel or put your gloves on, and shake and massage the bag, making sure the ice surrounds the cream mixture. Five to eight minutes is adequate time for the mixture to freeze into ice cream.
Freezer bags work best because they are thicker and less likely to develop small holes, allowing the bags to leak. You can get away with using regular Zip-loc bags for the smaller quart sizes, because you are double-bagging. Especially if you plan to do this indoors, I strongly recommend using gallon size freezer bags.

Parenting Tips
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How to Avoid Panic During the Recession

The recession has me worried. Sometimes I am truly concerned about how I am going to make ends make. Absurd as it may sound, the first thing that you should not do in a recession is panic. Panic is the opposite of logical, well planned preparation, which is exactly what you need in order to survive a recession.

Regardless of how you define a recession or how it affects national governments or international conglomerates, the meaning of recession on a personal or family level is fairly straightforward.\

In times of recession, there is considerably less money around than there would be when times are better and tightening the purse strings in this family has been necessary for a while.

Hence, on a personal family level, the first step that you can take to fight against the recession is to get your own house in order before it actually becomes necessary or critical to do so.

In order to start getting things sorted out, the first thing that you have to do is prioritize, and then you need to economize.

To begin the prioritization process, write down everything that you are currently spending on a piece of paper or create an online document for the same purposes. Then, put everything that you are currently spending money on into a prioritized list, with the most important aspects in the top slots and less important requirements further down the page.

Remember that this list is designed to be a prioritized list of things that you want to money on, rather than things that you would like to spend money on. Consequently, there is no place on a list like this for something as frivolous or unnecessary as upgrading your present 36 inch LCD TV to a 42 inch model when you got kids to send to university.

It may seem like it should be unnecessary to mention such a thing, as who would consider spending money on is what is non-essential, luxury item when money is tight?

Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is, quite a few people, because over the past few years, I think it is fair to say that people in most developed Western nations have convinced themselves that owning luxury goods is a ‘taken for granted' necessity. It just isn’t especially if you have kids!

It is absolutely essential to get out of this way of thinking right now if you are to have any realistic chance of surviving a recession with your mental self esteem as well as your physical health intact.

In short, no matter how bad things might appear to be, panic is not going to help in any situation or under any circumstances, so don't succumb to acting in unplanned haste!

Parenting Tips
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