Healthy Snow Cones!

While on vacation, my always-on-top-of-the-trends niece brought her snow-cone maker. Turns out, snow cones are all the rage this summer for the older elementary set.

Needless to say, my kids were smitten with the icy concoctions. So, after we got home, we bought ourselves a $15 snow cone maker. Standing there in Target, the kids and I had visions all the snow cones we'd make. We'd impress their friends. We'd cool ourselves after bike rides in the summer sun. We'd use all the ice that our lame ice maker could generate. But then we turned to the syrup selection and our happy imaginings came to an abrupt halt.

I could not buy the brightly colored, artificially flavored corn-syrup called "Snow Cone Syrup."

"Kids," I told them, "We'll invent our our syrup. It won't be easy-- it will involve a lot of ice, a dose of creativity and the courage to taste."

They nodded. And we set to work. Here are the results of weeks of study:

• Orange juice: Not too good. Too bland and the pulp gets caught on the ice. Plus, the color is unappealing.
• Fresh squeezed lemon or lime with honey: Delicious, but too much work. The bottles lemon and lime juice tasted funny.
  
• Olive juice: I refused to taste this one. The kids claim it was good, but then again they didn't actually eat much of it between hysterical bouts of laughter.
• Juicy juice: So-so, but not very great.
• Limeade concentrate, melted: Really good, but not very healthy. (Though better than the Snow Cone syrup.)
• And finally, the winner: 100% fruit juice concentrate, melted: Fantastically good! We used cranberry-raspberry juice blend. But there's lots of flavors. You can keep the can of concentrate in the frig, ready to go. The juice plus the ice is basically the equivalent of a cup of juice. Not as healthy as a piece of real fruit of course, but still fairly healthy.

Hurray for snow cones.

Camping Food Compromises

We are, quite possibly, the only family in Colorado who goes camping in a sedan. We balance a bike rack filled with 4 bikes on the back with another bike perched on top next to the rocket top. The kids have sleeping bags packed all around their feet and stuffed animals piled between them. The trunk is completely filled with food, of course. When we get out at rest stops I always wonder if the whole car might tip backwards, like a stroller with too many shopping bags hanging from the handlebars. When we go up mountain passes, we are the slowest vehicle in the slow lane at around 6 miles per hour, holding up even giant campers and loaded tractor trailers.

But we do eventually get there and start camping.

Camping, it seems, is considered a vacation. A vacation full of grime, extra work to accomplish the most basic tasks (such as washing dishes) and difficulty sleeping, but still a vacation. And I know many people subscribe to the idea that you should eat anything on vacation. I don't. I think you should eat anything that you really like on vacation. So, for me, marshmallows are in, as are s'mores. Fruit roll-ups, out. Hot chocolate, in. Sugary granola bars, out. Salt and vinegar chips, in. Boxed mac n' cheese and spaghetti-Os, definitely out. It sounds like an obvious point--but it's easy to overlook: don't eat junk food you don't love, even while camping.

That brings up the question: what can you eat while camping, besides junk food? Dehydrated food packets? No kid will eat those. And grown-ups only eat them so they can feel hard-core. They taste terrible. Gourmet fresh foods sauteed in your portable outdoor kitchen complete with spice rack and wine cooler? Not if you are traveling in a sedan. No, I go with easy to pack, easy to cook foods:

• Kashi brand granola bars
• Beef jerky (I get the kind w/out nitrates.)
• Turkey jerky (Hey, that rhymes!)
• Packets of instant grits
• Packets of instant unflavored oatmeal, with a bit of sugar on top
  
• Barbara's Bakery Saltine-style crackers
• 2% cheese sticks or string cheese
• Little containers of unsweetened applesauce, pineapple bits, or fruit cocktail
  
• Hebrew brand Low fat hot dogs (These do contain nitrates...it's a compromise.)
• Whole grain hot dog buns
• Unsweetened dried fruit
• 100% fruit chews
• 100% fruit juice boxes
• Apples
• Canned lower-sodium soup (Open the tops half way and set the whole can on the grill until hot.)
• Whole grain pasta, sauce and Parmesan cheese
• Baby carrots, pepper slices, cucumber slices and celery sticks
• Trail mix made with whole grain cereal