Banana "Squirrel"

Once upon a time there was a little boy and girl who enjoyed to watch Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.
Their mother thought the show had it's merits certainly. While some negative behaviors were learned from Daniel (things being "scary" and "too noisy") for the most part it was okay. Though their mother certainly wished that her little boy wanted to "try new foods 'cuz they might taste good" more often, Daniel didn't seem to inspire him on that front.

The end.

Except it isn't the end. I mean come on, you know me. So in the "try new food" episode Daniel and the real life clip make Banana Swirl. Which is basically that banana "nice" cream that's so popular on pinterest. You freeze bananas and then throw them in the food processor until it is the consistency of ice cream.

I love banana ice cream. Like real ice cream. It's my favorite. I especially like Coldstone Banana with coconut and chocolate chips. Or Ben and Jerry's Banana Split. Or Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey. So I don't really understand how Banana Swirl constitutes "a might taste good" thing. It's fake ice cream. What kid doesn't like ice cream? My kids love  ice cream and bananas. But whatever.

C got it in his head that we needed to make banana "squirrel" and so we did. The bananas took a lot longer to freeze solid than we anticipated so it was supposed to be our after Saturday rest snack and turned into our Sunday snack instead. (I am sure the bananas would have been ready by Saturday evening but we weren't home.)

He enjoyed making the banana swirl and putting sprinkles on it. It was good. I do like how frozen mashed banana is the texture of ice cream. We were going for the healthy true recipe of banana swirl but in the future I may add coconut and chocolate chips.

All smiles, though she probably was the least excited about eating it.

He was trying on his new soccer shoes with his soccer uniform and taking his Banana "Squirrel" very seriously.

Overall it was a fun activity using an ingredient we already have in our house because we go through bananas like crazy and we almost always have some unless it's grocery shopping day or just about to be. C was very excited about the whole activity. I wish C had taken away the "eat bell peppers and tomatoes" lesson from that episode of Daniel Tiger but you can't expect all kids to fall for that.