Playsational

We love breakfast foods and often have breakfast meals for dinner. One of our favorite breakfast meals to make is chocolate chip banana pancakes. And while we do like the sweetness of the chocolate chips, I feel better knowing these pancakes also have fresh bananas in them!

Ingredients to Make Chocolate Chip Banana Pancakes:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1 cup milk
• 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

How to Make Chocolate Chip Banana Pancakes:

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a blender.

2. Pour 1/4 cup of the batter for each pancake onto a hot griddle sprayed with cooking spray.

3. Flip when top of pancake begins to bubble.

Is that easy or what! Which is good because my girls (and hubby) absolutely love these so I usually double this recipe!

For more fun recipes to make with your kids, check out these kid friendly recipes!

My daughters love scrapbooking! So at the beginning of the summer, I went out and bought a bunch of scrapbooking materials for my last Camp Mommy activity. I decided to save the scrapbook materials until the end of the summer because I had an idea. I thought it would be fun to scrapbook all of our summer travel memories.

If you’re not into scrapbooking, but like the idea of preserving summer travel memories, you can also have your kids glue photos onto construction paper to make a summer vacation collage. If you’re not into scrapbooking, but would like to start, here are a few basic items I recommend you get.

Basic Scrapbook Supplies:

• Scrapbook
• Scrapbook paper
• Markers
• Stickers
• Scissors
• Tape or glue

Of course, there are tons more scrapbook supplies out there, but you really don’t need them for this scrapbook idea. All you need are these basic scrapbook supplies, photos from your summer travels and some creativity!

No matter how you preserve your summer travel memories, it will be a wonderful keepsake!

Cherries are in season so last night we made this wonderful cherry pie recipe that I want to share with you. While “pie” would be somewhat of an overstatement, it did involve cherries and a pie plate! Just none of the fuss and muss of making pie crust.

Here’s What You Need to Make this Cherry “Pie” Recipe:

• 5 cups fresh pitted cherries
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 Tbs. plus 1/4 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Here’s How You Make this Cherry “Pie” Recipe:

1. Pit cherries.

I think this must be where the expression, “It’s the pits!” comes from because this is the longest part of the recipe! Luckily, it goes a whole lot faster when kids help!

2. Toss pitted cherries with the sugar and 3 Tbs. flour; then put mixture in 8 inch pie dish.

3. Mix oats with brown sugar, remaining flour and cinnamon; then cut in the butter to make coarse crumbs. Here is where you can add the nuts, but we didn’t because my daughter has a nut allergy.

4. Sprinkle topping over the cherry filling.

5. Bake at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes until the topping is golden brown and the cherries are bubbling.

This cherry pie recipe is delicious, easy and kid friendly! Here are more kid friendly recipes!

If you like your cherry pie a la mode, here is how to make homemade ice cream in a plastic bag!

We love ice cream! We take it so seriously that we have a family expression, “Never joke about ice cream.” That’s why we were excited when the girls got the opportunity to make homemade ice cream on our recent trip to Vermont. We were just a wee bit more excited when we got to tour the Ben and Jerry’s factory, but this activity was still a lot fun and very yummy!

I’ve always wanted to make homemade ice cream, but have never invested in an ice cream maker. If you too haven’t taken that plunge, here’s a simple way to make ice cream without an ice cream maker.

What You Need to Make Homemade Ice Cream in a Plastic Bag

Here’s How to Make Homemade Ice Cream in a Plastic Bag

1. Put the sugar, vanilla and milk into the small plastic bag and seal it.

2. Fill the plastic storage container half full of ice and add the salt to make the ice colder.

3. Place the small plastic bag inside the storage container and seal the container.

4. Shake until the mixture is ice cream, which takes about 15 minutes.

5. Then enjoy your homemade vanilla ice cream! If you’re looking for some homemade cookies to go with that homemade vanilla ice cream, try these chocolate chip cookies made in a solar oven!

My girls and I love chocolate chip cookies! And while I often bake them from scratch (though I use break and bake cookies equally as often ; ) ) I usually bake chocolate chip cookies in the cooler months so I don’t have to turn the oven on during the day. But today we decided to take advantage of the hot sun . . . and used a solar oven to bake our chocolate chip cookies!

You’re probably thinking . . . Huh?

Well, our solar oven was made of homemade solar panels and a pizza box.

Double, huh?

Let me explain.

Here’s What You Need to Make a Solar Oven:

• Pizza box
• Plastic wrap
• Aluminum foil
• Black construction paper
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Tape
• Scissors
• Chocolate Chip cookie dough (definitely a time for break and bake!)

Here’s How to Bake with a Solar Oven:

1. Trace a 5″ x 5″ square in the center of the top of the pizza box.

2. Cut along the bottom and two sides of the square, leaving the top edge of the square still attached to the pizza box.

3. Wrap the 5″ x 5″ flap with aluminum foil and tape it so it stays open.

4. Lift the pizza top open and tape clear plastic wrap so it covers the 5″ x 5″ opening.

5. Place a piece of black construction paper on the bottom of the pizza box.

6. Place the cookie dough in the center of the black paper so the cookies are visible through the top of the pizza box, I mean solar oven!

7. Put the pizza box solar oven with the chocolate chip cookie dough in the sun. Make sure the shadow of the homemade solar panel is directly behind the box. This ensures the cookies are getting direct sunlight. However, since the sun is continually moving, the pizza box solar oven must be moved every two hours to keep up! After about 4-6 hours (solar cooking takes longer!), the chocolate chip cookies should be done and ready to eat right from the solar oven!