Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Misc.- Sippy Cups in the Dishwasher and Iced Coffee!

I don't know what the weather is like where you are, but we're about ready to burst into flames here!  I'm originally from the northeast, but I'm getting to experience weather variety thanks to being a military spouse.  So, instead of playing outside every afternoon, we have been taking shelter in the air conditioning until AFTER dinner.  So here are some random thoughts I thought I would share.

First of all, sippy cups... I hate them.  We tried to skip them completely.  It was going well until we visited the grandparents for several weeks and sippy cups were just easier.  We had opted for the kid cups that look like travel coffee cups.  I just removed the valve and its a great training cup!  I also found, but haven't tried yet, a great product, the "Oxo Training Cup."  It's similar to what I have rigged up with the cups we have, so I don't think I will buy any more cups.

But anyway, back to the sippy cups.  I prefer the "Take and Toss" cups but I hate putting them in the dishwasher!  They always flip over that fill up with dirty dish water.  Yuck!  Whenever I filled the dishwasher, I was always looking for something to put on top of them, a collander, a bowl, anything.  The problem, they still sometimes flipped and the bowl or whatever didn't always get clean.  One day, the light bulb went on!  Accidently, of course, but on just the same.  I had been baking cookies and needed to wash the cooling rack.  PERFECT!  Now I always put a cooling rack on top of my sippy cups. 



I have ones with legs.  The legs wrap around the cups or the row.  Very rarely do the cups flip over now.  I also don't lose the lids.  At one point, I was short about 8 lids.  They kept flying down to the bottom and melting!  I hope this tip works for you too!

Next random thought.  Serendipity!  Once upon a time I used to buy Serendipity's Frozen Hot Chocolate Mix!  YUM!  They stopped selling it at our local mall and I haven't thought about it in years!  But my husband went to Las Vegas for our pre-deployment vacation.  We ate at Serendipity's and my husband had his first taste of the good stuff (better than the mix by the way!).  This week, since I was missing the hubby so much, I searched to see if I could still get the mix online.  I found the recipe!!!  I guess Serendipity shared the recipe with Oprah at some point.  (I don't know how I missed that episode!)  I don't want to put the recipe here, because its not mine to share.  You can find it if you search for it.  I highly recommend it!  The mix is easier though, and I might still order it.

I can share my secret for iced coffee!  I LOVE Sheetz's (is that right?) Iced Mocha Coffee!  We don't have Sheetz here, so I had to make my own.  First I tried making some coffee, letting it cool, adding chocolate and milk.  This did not work because the coffee was very week.  I tried searching for a recipe online.  The recipes had some great reviews, but seemed complicated.  One told me to soak some coffee grains over night and strain the mixture.  Plus, I have to wait till the next day to have my iced coffee??!!  Or plan ahead??  The other commenters said that they make wnough for a week or two and just keep it in the fridge... UMMM... gross.  OK, here is my way. 

I take a small amount of water, maybe a 1/4 cup or less (I don't measure it).  I microwave the water or boil it, doesn't matter.  When its hot, I dissolve 3 teaspoons of instant coffee.  Then I put in two or three iced cubes to cool it off.  In a cup, I mix about 10 ounces of skim milk with enough chocolate syrup for the amount of milk.  I add the coffee and stir.  I fill the cup up the rest of the way with ice and stir.  That's it.  I can make it in 2-3 minutes and be drinking it!!!  Plus you can adjust the amount of coffee, milk, or chocolate to suit your own taste.  I don't really like milk, so sometimes I use mostly water with just a splash of milk (but I don't recommend it, unless you don't like milk too... my husband thinks its pretty gross without the milk.  But we make hot coffee with mostly water soooo IDK)

So that's it.  I'm going to go make some iced coffee and sip it in my air conditioning.  Well, only if my 2 year old lets me, of course!!!




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