I\'m Summer, a mouthy, sarcastic bitch. I\'m passionate about natural birth, long term breastfeeding, and living naturally. I curse too much, love tattoos, and will some day be crushed to death by my book collection. I homeschool, dream of gardening, and swing to the left. 
Make your own fruit syrup
I was feeling pretty good this morning so I decided to whip up a batch of pancakes. The boys love my homemade pancakes, especially when I add pieces of bananas to the mix. This morning, however, I decided to make plain pancakes and try my hand at making some fruit syrup to put over them. I have had this recipe sitting around for a couple weeks but had not yet had the guts to try it.
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 2/3 cup fruit juice
Add the fruit juice to the dry mixture and stir to disolve. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Cook over medium heat 5 to 10 minutes until thick.
It was a bit tricky to stand there and constantly stir it while the boys were at the gate screaming at me. They hate not being able to come into the kitchen, but as soon as they do they are under feet or messing with the stove. Next time I try this I might make it the night before and see if i can store it overnight in the fridge. The recipe didn’t say anything about storage so I don’t know if it will work.
I decided to make it with just strawberries, which was a big hit with the boys. The syrup was slightly pink. I didn’t have a full 2/3 cup of juice, so I cut the recipe down. Still the boys loved it. E ate 2 whole pancakes and all the sliced strawberries. He usually barely eats 1 pancake before he’s full, so this was obviously good. Even A had a few pieces of fruit and pancakes, though I left off the syrup for him. He wasn’t too sure about the pancakes but the fruit was good.
The last time we bought syrup I think it was about $2.50 for the bottle. And didn’t have any fruit juice in it. If I am figuring it out right making this syrup is cheaper than buying a bottle from the store. Though most things are cheaper when you make it yourself. I could probably cut 1/3 off of our grocery bill each month if I bought more raw ingredients and made a lot more food myself. The raw ingredients tend to be a lot cheaper, like rice and beans bought dry in bulk bags. There are some other good tips at Budget Cooking for Frugal Moms.
pancake syrup
cooking
fruit
frugal
The last time I bought syrup was when we had company spending the night, and I wasn’t sure if they would be happy with our locally harvested honey – or eating them plain (which is also a favorite choice).
Michael uses it occasionally (it’s still in there, I think – I’m sure it has a shelf-life of about 4,000 years). I just look at him with a disgusted face and ask him to hide the brown tinted high fructose corn syrup from the kids.