Science Experiments!

WARNING:
Picture heavy post. Please don all PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)

I confess. Sometimes I get some crazy ideas into my head. My childhood was interesting, especially when I thought I could invent something new. Once I thought I could invent a better alarm clock by hanging up a bag of marbles over my pillow by a string. Needless to say, I've never lacked imagination. This week I had several grand ideas.


The first was a bit like pantry diving, but I didn't have to go that far. I had a bit of leftover peach pie and suddenly wondered this past Sunday morning, "I wonder if I can integrate leftover pie into oatmeal?" Even better, I had some fancy-shmancy cranberry and almond oatmeal to mix it with.

Mmmmm, peaches, oatmeal, pie crust, and milk. What more could you ask for?

Believe it or not, it actually turned out okay! It tasted a lot like muesli or another one of those really expensive granola-type cereals. It probably helps that I really love fruit. I'd take a fruit-based dessert over a chocolate one any day. I'll wait a moment for your shock and horror to subside. Carrying on, if you ever have some leftover pie, this isn't a bad route to take.

My next idea had to do with my most favorite beverage in the whole world: Tea! I really do try to eat healthy when I can, so I felt like a genius when I had this next idea. Here's my ingredient equation...

Cranberry (really healthy, especially for your indoor plumbing)
+
Pomegranates (loads of antioxidants)
=
Ocean Spray Cran-Pomegranate Juice (super healthy!)

Green Tea (scientifically proven to decrease your chance of heart disease)
+
Ocean Spray Cran-Pomegranate Juice
=
You will live forever!!!

Okay, maybe not forever, but it can only improve your chances for immortality. I went half juice and half tea for this concoction and did not add any sugar.

In case you're wondering, yes, I heated it up in the microwave. Blasphemy to most tea traditionalists, but you know what? I'm lazy.

This too turned out quite well. It wasn't as sweet as I usually take my tea, but I was okay with that. Plus, this works because I generally have some trouble with green tea. It tastes a bit like grass. Didn't have any of that with my green-cran-pom brew.

Last, but not least, came the biggest invention of the week. See, I've been planning on making a nice, icy treat for my little fur-babies. They usually stay outside (with lots of fresh water) while we're at work. Badger is black as night and so soaks up heat like nobody's business and Bruin...well, Bruin's just so darn fluffy!

Mummy! Why are we outside? We want to come in!

Frozen dog treats are easy enough to make. Just combine some doggie-safe ingredients (I used vanilla yogurt, peanut butter, and water) and freeze. Freeze? Like in ice cube trays? Yeah, I don't actually own any of those. My house came with a fridge, and my fridge came with an automatic ice maker. And do you know what I found out when I went shopping for an ice cube tray? Those suckers are like $2.50 a pop! Really? For a plastic water mold? We can do better than this. Yes, ladies and possibly gentlemen, I made my own ice cube tray...sort of.

Okay, so this experiment didn't go exactly to plan, but it worked well enough! Follow me.

Here's the hardware. Yes, that's aluminum foil back there.


My kids were very excited about this!


They even helped me clean up the "leftover" peanut butter.


There's the yogurt and peanut butter together. I used one small carton of yogurt and a few healthy spoon fulls of peanut butter. After this, I added a bunch of water.


Then I pulled out a lot of tinfoil to build my tray.


I will not even begin to try and explain how I made this.


I then folded two strips of tinfoil to further separate the "tray" into sections.


And into the freezer it goes. This looks more like a UFO, but I do recommend constructing your "tray" on the baking sheet. Getting the "tray" onto the sheet with the mixture already in it was challenging, but not impossible.


Tadaa! Frozen puppy treat planks!


And two very happy puppies. :-)

And so ends another exciting week in the world of my culinary experiments. I know some of these things may seem weird, but, like my mum always says, you never know until you try it. So give it a go! And thanks for reading.