Winter Citrus

I know, I know. I said I would continue to post. I would post even as popsicle weather evolved into hot chocolate weather (hmm, hot chocolate popsicles?) I really have no excuse given the mild state of our winter. How do these Climategate 2.0 jokers continue to deny climate change?

Moving on. Yesterday I was lucky enough to spend the afternoon and evening with Dr. Cohen. A devoted fan of us here at mmmPOP, he was disappointed to find my freezer completely devoid of popsicles. So, he pulled me out of my popsicle hiatus to make some mango inspired pops.

We decided on MANGO ORANGE GINGER. We blended:

1/2 orange
1 cup frozen mango
2 tbs crystalized ginger
3 oz nonfat greek yogurt

I left the first batch in a little too long and struggled to remove them. Miss McNitt, usually very handy in these situations, was nowhere to be found. Luckily Dr. Cohen used his BigStrongManMuscles (is that the proper medical term, Zak?) to successfuly remove the pops!

I haven't tried one yet but they smell delightfully citrusy. And I do feel better knowing my freezer is no longer a pop-free zone. Phew.

Gooses...geeses

 

I want a goose to lay gold eggs for Easter. Okay, I could quote Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder, obvi) all day but it has nothing to do with this pop. I love the Green City farmer's market. Thankfully, I walk and can only carry a fixed amount home. Otherwise, I would most certainly go overboard.  I recently purchased a box of unhusked gooseberries. I had never seen them in their delicate little husks before. I was intrigued.

Gooseberries have a strange flavor, sort of a cross between a berry and a tomato. To make GOOSEBERRY POPS, I needed to add another strong flavor. I decided on lemon. I combined:


1 box gooseberries
3 oz Greek yogurt
1/2 lemon, juiced and zested
1 tbs raw honey

I love these pops! They're tart with an interesting and unique undertone. What should I grab this weekend at the farmer's market?

L'Shanah Tovah!

Happy New Year! I recently bought a mini two-pop Zoku to bring to Cape Cod. Unfortunately, we all remember the broken freezer incident. I decided to give it a home at my parents' house, should the *popping* mood strike me there.

I was home celebrating Rosh Hashanah on Wednesday evening and decided to make
APPLE AND HONEY pops! Apples and honey are traditionally eaten on Rosh Hashanah to ring in a sweet new year. I blended:

1 Granny Smith Apple
1 tbs lemon juice
2 oz goat yogurt (my mom's fav)
water for blending

They were quite good (although they could stand to be tarter). I hope everyone has a *pop*tastic new year!

Failure in the Freezer

It's only mid-September and pumpkin flavored pastries are already *popping* up everywhere. I was planning to make PUMPKIN POPS for Thanksgiving, but I just couldn't wait! And I'm glad I didn't. This recipe needs some serious tweaking. I combined:

1 can unsweetened pumpkin puree
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbs ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tbs orange peel
1 tbs raw honey

The pops are decent. They're edible. But I'm disappointed. Next time I'll add yogurt for a creamier consistency. The clove flavor is quite strong and overpowers the pop and think I may eliminate cloves all together in the next batch. I'll try again and update ya'll on my pumpkin pop progress.

popcessorizing

 
I love kitschy needlepoint. It's retro and whimsical... two of my favorite design descriptors. I have a phenomenal Jonathan Adler lemon pillow on my loveseat. I just stumbled upon this adorable Christen Maxwell Popsicle Mini Throw. Can't you picture it in a little girl's room? I'm pretty sure Miss Silbert would buy one for her own room.

Jam Pops?

I just picked up this delightful cookbook on One King's Lane. I will post on my jam making endeavors in a few weeks. Currently, only the labels have been completed (well...designed).

I've been paging through and I'm quite impressed with the flavor combinations. Many of them would make excellent pops. Orange kumqat with cardamon sounds especially delicious....

Presidential Pops

While on Martha's Vineyard a few weeks ago, Dr. Cornelius procured some of the most delicious pistachio ice cream. It was the perfect creamy to crunch ratio; perhaps the creameries had stepped up their game for the Obamas. Or for us. We're almost as important...

Anyway, Miss McNitt recently purchased some pistachios at Costco and I thought I'd give PISTACHIO POPS a whirl. I blended:

25 pistachios, shelled and minced
6 oz Greek yogurt
1 tbs raw honey






I couldn't find chopped pistachios, and they likely would not have been chopped as finely as desired. I used my mezzaluna. My culinarily inclined brother purchased it for me and I use it at least 4 times a week. It's great for herbs, nuts, veggies and especially onions. I usually cry on first slice but I can now chop half an onion without tearing up.

The pops turned out quite well. I think next time I'll up the pistachio content and add some minced nuts after I blend for textural variation.

Just Beet It

I'm admittedly one of those people who detested beets as a child. It wasn't even predominantly the taste but rather the aesthetics. Yes, beets are beautiful. But they color, LITERALLY, everything around them. They cause mushrooms to look especially diseased. Thankfully, I have gotten over my fear of beets. I was a little skeptical of making BEET POPS, but decided to forge ahead. Dr. Cornelius suggested a currant pairing, citing currants as an incredibly underused ingredient. I took his advice and concocted:

1 can of sliced beets
6 oz Greek yogurt
2 tbs black currant preserves
1 tbs raw honey

As you can see, the color is magnificent. They are pretty delicious, too. I thought they could stand for another flavor, perhaps bolder on the currant front. Dr. Cornelius disagreed.

Squash 'n Pop

What a beautiful, brisk autumnal day here in Chicago! That, coupled with the wild success of my fig pops (see below), inspired me to begin my series on Fall flavors.

Yesterday, while waiting for a table at Over Easy, I happened into Dolce Casa Cafe for some coffee. It's a charming little place featuring Metropolis Coffee (my fav local roast) and some very creative pastries, including several varieties of zucchini bread. YUM. I love zucchini bread. So I decided to make some ZUCCHINI POPS.


I sliced a small zucchini and microwaved it for 3 minutes, until soft. I blended it with:

6 ounces Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 lemon juiced and zested

I tasted the mixture but have yet to try a pop. It was good but overwhemingly citrusy. I think next time I'll keep the lemon juice but skip the zest. Perhaps I'll add some nutmeg, too.

my fig fiancée

Fig season has arrived. Okay, I know it technically started in June, but it peaks in late summer/early fall. I bought some last week and sliced them, brushed them with a little butter and agave and baked them with chopped pistachios. They were divine. There's something very decadent about the fig no matter how simple the preparation. I sent a picture of my fig creation to Dr. Cornelius. And I told him about my fig pops. And I apparently waxed on and on and on until...the confrontation. He snapped that I had become obsessed with figs. Figs were my new fiancée.

Let me explain. Have you seen the Seinfeld episode The Stranded? Jerry and Elaine are at a party and a highly annoying woman with pretentiously affected speech constantly refers to her fiancée? Well every so often, The Good Doctor deems something my new fiancée (read: STOP TALKING ABOUT IT).

So I stopped. To him, at least. But I could not deprive you, reader, of this delicious FIG POP recipe. I blended:

6 ripe figs
3 oz Greek yogurt
1 tsp raspberry agave syrup
water (for blending)

They are absolutely delicious. Decadent even. And thus begins my autumnal pop series. Check back for two more later this afternoon!

Tea-riffic Pops!

Sorry, again. I've been neglectful. I promise, I still love you. And making pops to share with you. But I have a REALLY good excuse. I was in Cape Cod for the week and our beautifully outfitted kitchen had two fancy freezer drawers. Unfortunately, neither of them was functional. Sadly, no pops. Dr. Cornelius and I were quite disappointed. But anyways, I am back and I have a few pops to catch y'all up on, enjoy!

Every summer Miss McNitt (and formerly Skipper Wurzburg) and I make vodka tea. I'm convinced Absolut's Wild Tea Vodka was ripped off our brilliant and delicious concoction. We take a pitcher of vodka and steep sixish fruit flavored tea bags in the sun for 48 hours. It is delicious. So delicious in fact, Miss McNitt often forgets its straight booze and consumes it by the glassful. I don't recommend it.

This March, my mother and I spent a delightfully relaxing week at  Mii Amo spa in Sedona, Arizona. There I enjoyed several daily glasses of Sedona Sun Iced Tea. It's a delicious herbal rooibos made with elderberries and black currants. I brought home a small sample and decided to *pop* some into some pops. I combined:

1 cup of tea (steeped overnight)
1/2 cup frozen raspberries

That's it! Very simple and very flavorful! Try it with YOUR favorite tea.

Pops around the World

I love Vietnamese food. Goi cuon, pho, all of it. I love the herbs and flavors: spearmint, garlic, lime, cilantro, shallot, coconut and most of all, lemongrass. I began thinking of ways to incorporate lemongrass into a pop. I toyed with ideas involving vanilla, orange and mango and finally settled on pineapple. I wanted it to be tangy but also creamy and rich. I combined:

1 cup frozen pineapple
3 ounces greek yogurt
1 tablespoon lemongrass paste
1 teaspoon ginger paste
2 tablespoons lime juice

I didn't want another boring yellow pop so I admit, I added some yellow food coloring to half of the mixture to make stripes. I love these pops. Miss Silbert has deemed them her new favorite. They're the perfect amount of creaminess and manage to be both savory and sweet. This recipe will definitely be repeated. Send me YOUR favorite kind of food and I'll design a pop for YOU!

I'm in love.

Yes, I'm in love. With Siggi's Icelandic style yogurt. But we'll get back to that. I wanted to make creamsicles. But not your traditional creamsicle... I always found those a bit heavy on the cream, light on the sicle. I picked out some orange/mango juice and was pondering what to use as filling. I finally decided on greek yogurt. But alas, there was no vanilla greek yogurt (of the fat free persuasion) at Whole Foods! Blast! I instead grabbed some vanilla Siggi's. Impressed with the ingredient list (all natural), I picked up some strawberry as well.

This yogurt is awesome. I don't know how else to describe it. Go out and buy some. NOW. But don't buy all the strawberry, I need more. Ok, back to the pops...

I filled the ZOKU with the orange/mango juice and let freeze for about 3 minutes. I then removed the center of the pop (with the fancy ZOKU baster-looking-tool) and filled it with vanilla yogurt blended with a little water and agave syrup.

They turned out quite well. Miss McNitt deemed them her new favorite. And I'm anxious to make more pops with fun fillings. Suggestions? Leave a comment!

Herb-berry

Why am I so delicious to mosquitoes? They absolutely adore me. And lately, they're everywhere. Luckily, the chivalrous Dr. Cornelius ventured out into my parents' mosquito infested garden and clipped a beautiful selection of herbs for me. So brave. And my very generous parents (once again) bought an insane amount of blueberries at the farmer's market and donated some to their grateful daughter.

What to do with all of this generosity? I decided to make BERRY ROSEMARY pops. I blended:

- 1 cup blueberries
- 1/2 cup silken tofu
- 1 tbsp agave syrup
- 2 tbsp minced fresh rosemary

set half of mixture aside and add:

- 1 cup frozen raspberries

Alternate stripes of the two mixtures. Yields 6 Zoku pops. I ended up with some extra mixture and added: 

- 1 cup frozen strawberries
- 2 shots Absolut Vodka

Pour into ice pop mold. Yields 5 pops.

I think they turned out beautifully! I've realized that heavy mixtures containing blended fruit (as opposed to juice or other liquid) yield strange, uneven stripes. The mixture doesn't spread fast enough across the mold to create straight stripes. Not ideal, but cute and homemade looking. Any other herby pop ideas? Leave your ideas in the comments section, or post on the mmmPOP! Facebook Page.

Purely Pineapple

I'm sorry I've been so distant. I really am. It's been a busy few weeks. But now the weekend is over, many many pops were consumed and many many sticks are now available for use. I PROMISE posting will resume as normal this week.

Last week, feeling beaten down by my day with the little ones, I came home in need of refreshment. That refreshment often comes in the form of red wine but I'm trying to cut back on week days. Trying. Remembering the Whole Foods 365 Pineapple Pops of blessed memory, I decided to resurrect them. Easy enough. I blended pineapple and.....pineapple.

They're pretty awesome. In retrospect, I should've left some pineapple chunks in to add a little complexity to the texture. Next time.

Cold Busting Pops

I had a fantastic weekend in LA. I got to attend an amazingly beautiful wedding of a blissfully happy (and strangely calm) couple surrounded by friends and gorgeous scenery. And then I woke up Sunday, with a cold. And then I had to fly home Monday, my poor little ears.

So I arrived home and spent much of Tuesday sleeping. I finally arose in the late afternoon, took another dose of Dayquil (bless you, Quils, both Day and Night). I started to feel better. Well, a little better. Better enough to whip up some Vitamin C rich pops to soothe my throat and boost my immunity.

Dr. Cornelius and I were at Whole Foods last week. The AC at his office was broken, it was 96 degrees and the man needed some relief. He bought some Whole Foods 365 Tropical Blend Fruit Bars. He loved them. Almost to the point where I was a little jealous of Whole Foods. Just a lil.

Inspired by jealousy and illness, I made my own TROPICAL BLEND fruit bars. I combined:

1/2 cup peaches
1/2 cup pineapple
1/2 cup mango
1 orange, peeled

I set half the mixture aside and blended the remaining with 1/2 cup raspberries (I would have preferred strawberries for this blend but unfortunately I was out). I then alternated stripes of the two mixtures for visual effect.

The result? A delicious, all-fruit, cold-busting pop. A cure that leaves an excellent taste in my mouth.

An apple a day...

Inspired by the incredible success of my other cake mix pops (Key Lime and Cake Batter), I decided to try APPLE CINNAMON pops. I combined:

4 tablespoons of Fiber One Apple Cinnamon Muffin Mix
1 Granny Smith Apple
6 ounces Fage Greek Yogurt
1 tablespoon agave syrup
1 teaspoon cinnamon

I have to say, these pops were a big disappointment. They look pretty unappetizing. They taste fair. They're not completely unpalatable, but there's some weird after-taste action. Dr. Cornelius really enjoyed his. But then again, the man never met a popsicle he didn't like...wokka wokka.

Crazy about Cranberries

I bought a bag of unsweetened frozen cranberries at Whole Foods last week. I first thought about making cosmopolitan pops, but I still have many mimosa and watermelon mojito pops hanging out in my freezer. They can't all be cocktail pops... can they?

I still had an orange leftover from the batch of mimosa pops. I decided to make CRANBERRY ORANGE pops. A delicious combo usually reserved for desserts and sauces, I thought it would translate well into pops.

1 orange, zested and peeled
1 tablespoon of Sicilian Orange Fruit Spread
1 1/2 cups of unsweetened frozen cranberries
1 tablespoon of agave syrup

Blend ingredients and pour into Zoku molds. 

I like the end result. They're quite tart. Clearly not a pop for everyone. I'm pretty sure Miss McNitt will hate them. Oh well, more for me!

Beat the Heat

Yes, talking about the weather is trite. Blah blah blah. I don't care. It is HOT out. A dense, stifling heat has engulfed Chicago. I must admit that I stayed out quite late and had more than a few cocktails last night. It's not my fault...I had to entertain my fans at karaoke with an amazingly Joplinesque rendition of Mercedes Benz. Stepping outside this morning (ok, it was about 2:00pm) was torturous.

So I devised a plan: concoct a supremely refreshing pop recipe to ease the pain of lethargic, schvitzy friends in need of a cool, quenching treat. I decided on WATERMELON CUCUMBER with hints of lime and mint.

1/8 watermelon, cubed
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
4 tablespoons lime juice
1 lime, zested and juiced
1 small cucumber, peeled
2 tablespoons light agave syrup

Combine in blender and pour into molds. I added rum to the leftover mixture (after making 3 Zoku pops) and poured into regular ice pop molds.

I sampled one of the (virgin) pops and it was just as I hoped...cool, refreshing and flavorful.

Batter Up!

CAKE BATTER POPS. Need I say more? Remember the forbidden, sticky deliciousness of running your finger around the rim of a batter bowl when mom was baking (or you were baking, if you were a nerdy, domestic child like yours truly)? These pops legitimize those memorable, finger-licking moments in beautiful, solid (not so sticky) grown-up pop. 

I'm trying to keep up with detailed recipes, so here goes....

6 ounces 0% Greek yogurt

4 tablespoons Pillsbury Sugar Free Classic Yellow Cake Mix

1/3 cup water

1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine ingredients in blender. Once mixed, pour in 1.5 tablespoons of chocolate syrup and swirl. Pour into molds. Pour sprinkles onto the bottom of the pop and press gently.

The chocolate syrup does not freeze thoroughly so the inside of the pop stays amazingly gooey. These pops are getting great reviews, try them yourself or come on over for a sample!