Yummy Haribo Gummi Candy

This is my favorite time of the year. The summer fruits start hitting the supermarkets and produce stands. Every cooking magazine is chocked full of simple and delicious recipes with fruit as the main ingredient. Fruit is a powerful food when it comes to health, happiness and weight loss.
Truth be told, you don’t really have to do much to summer fruits to make them taste amazing, you just merely wait until they’re ripe and dive right in.
When I was a kid, my mom used to buy a big basket of strawberries and cut them up, put them in a bowl, and sprinkle sugar on top. She would put them in the fridge and wait a few hours until they mixed with the sugar to make a syrupy sweet mess at the bottom of that bowl. I used to love that. But these days, I don’t want to ruin berries, or any fruit for that matter, with silly sugar. Let the delicious summer fruits subtly seduce you on their own. Taste the sweetness only nature can produce.
Luckily, new trends in weight loss are now showing that perhaps we don’t need to steer clear of the calories in fruit, but instead load up on mostly fruits that contain more water in a larger package. Watermelon is the perfect example. It is a huge fruit, can take up a lot of room on your picnic plate, tastes amazing and is mostly water.
Which means, you can eat a bunch of watermelon, feel full and eat fewer of the high calorie foods you would have eaten instead (i.e. evil culprits like mayonnaise-laden potato salad or an extra hot dog). This little trick can help you fell fuller longer and might even eliminate those cravings for the brownies or ice-cream that can be typically served at summer get-togethers.
Other great fruits to consider are raspberries, grapefruit, melons, peaches, and pineapple (and to me these are the all-stars). These fruits are full of a soluble fiber called pectin (which is also sometimes contained in fruit-like gummy candies and jelly beans) which can cling to fats in the digestive tract and flush them out before they can be absorbed by the body. Don’t go crazy though, this is merely meant as an aid in slimming down, not an excuse to eat more.
Another great tip and one that is dear to the green movement, is to try to buy and eat local produce whenever possible. It supports your own community, and because it doesn’t need to travel as far, it doesn’t require as much gas to be consumed and in turn can even be slightly less expensive these days. In addition, because it travels a shorter distance to the consumer can actually be picked and sold when it is ripe. Vine-ripened fruit is shown to contain twice as much of something than that of green-picked fruit- super-oxidants known as nonfluorescent chlorophyll catabolites (boy is that a mouthful!). These fabulous NCCs (can we call them that?) assist the liver’s ability to burn fat. Hoorah!
It does make sense that the longer something is in the soil and absorbing the sun, the more nutrients it contains…
I have to say, this is the some of the best news I have heard all week. So go out and buy some ripe and local sweet fruit and have a fun weekend. You may just be a delicious baby-step leaner.

Simple and Whimsical Ways To Play with Your Food
We are all guilty of flipping through the latest issue of Parent’s Magazine and admiring the adorable birthday cakes that grace the center pages. They look so cute! They look so delicious! They look simple! That is until we take a glance at the directions . . . and then? They look so “never-gonna-happen”.
If you don’t have the time to devote to fantastical creations that take hours to complete, you aren’t alone. In fact, the last time I cooked a “homemade” cake, I have to admit, it came from the bakery section of our local Wal-Mart. The good news is, there is “homemade” hope for we culinary underachievers.
If you are a stovetop slacker too, read on to find some fabulously simple recipes sure to please. Caterpillar Cupcakes
Put your patterns and umpteen ingredients away all you chefs of the world. In the eyes of your little ones, our easy as pie caterpillar cupcakes will rival the likes of Emeril’s greatest hits. Bam!
Simply grab a box of cake mix and whip up a dozen cupcakes. While allowing them to cool, mix a few drops of green food coloring into a tub of vanilla icing. Once your cupcakes are cool enough, ice each one.
Now for the fun part, arrange the cupcakes in a wiggly row along the table. Allow the kids to place licorice strands on each cupcake for the legs. Decorate the “face” cupcake using your child’s favorite candies for a nose, eyes and mouth.
Helpful Hint- Have multiple children? Avoid the fight over the candy decorated “face” by dividing the cupcakes into threes to create smaller, multiple caterpillars . . . and happier kids in the process.Gummy Bear Popcorn
Have a teddy bear that dotes on all things whimsical? Make movie night extra special with this simple recipe that takes all of three minutes to create.
Start by popping a bag of unbuttered popcorn. After cooking time, open the bag and toss in a small bag of chocolate chips. Close the bag and give a good shake. Pour the popcorn into colorful bowls and add a handful of gummy bears to the mix. This treat is a match made in sweet-treat heaven and it’s perfect for sharing!Dino Dig Sundaes
Looking for a whimsical snack for your little archeologist? Pop in the Land Before Time and whip up these Dino Dig Sundaes for a themed treat he’ll ask for again and again. Simply place a scoop of ice-cream into a bowl, top with smashed Oreo cookies for the “dirt” and finish off with a dino-shaped cookie or gummy.
Can’t find any dinosaur shaped treats? Whoppers make for great dinosaur eggs! Scrumptious Seaweed Dinner
A lot more appetizing than it sounds, all it takes is a package of ramen noodles, a hotdog and a dollop of mustard.
Start out by warming the hotdog and cooking up the noodles. Drain the noodles well and coat with the provided mix and a few drops of green food coloring. Place them on a plate while you work on your hotdog “Octopus”.
To make the octopus all you need to do is create four slits in the bottom half of the hotdog for “arms.” Spread each one out onto the top of the Ramen and it will stand freely. Finish off with a few dollops of mustard for eyes and viola! You have an instant seaweed dinner your little diver is sure to gulp right up!Haunted Punch
Perfect for Halloween but magical for anytime of the year, our haunted punch will have your little ones spellbound. Simply take a clean plastic glove and fill it with water or juice, tying it off at the end like a balloon. Then, allow it to freeze overnight.
Mix a little fruit punch into a large bowl along with a can of pineapple juice. Remove the glove from the freezer and peel away the plastic. Ta-da! An instant floating “idle hand” for your punch bowl!
When it comes to culinary fun, a simple creative inch goes a long way. Get the little ones involved. Try new things, dream up new possibilities and if all else fails . . . have a food fight! It’s the most underrated culinary experience of all!