Day 180 — Tulsi Ginger Ice Pops

Sorry I skipped yesterday’s pop. We have family in town, and I ended up too tired from hanging out with everyone to make an ice pop. But I’m back today.

Even better, my sister-in-law came bearing ice pop fodder gifts, in the form of really interesting tea from India:

What is tulsi, you ask?  Good question.  I didn’t know either.  Luckily, the package had some information:

In case you can’t read this, Tulsi is a kind of basil, known in India for its healing properties.

 

I brewed up a cup of tea and squeezed in a good tablespoon of honey, let it cool and poured my pops.  They turned out a very nice honey color (go figure).

These were by far my favorite of the tea-based ice pops I’ve made.  They were a little on the sweet side, but the honey gave them a nice consistency.  And the tea itself had just enough of the spice of ginger to make them interesting.  I didn’t really taste any flavor that I could identify as the tulsi, but still it was a really nice ice pop.  A second round of these might be just the thing we need when the temperature hits 104 degrees tomorrow.

Day 118 — Strawberry Basil Ice Pops

Today’s pop was an experiment. After the success of the strawberry balsamic ice pops last week, I thought it would be fun to see if different savory flavors worked well in an ice pop. Somewhere in the recesses of my memory lurked the idea that basil can be paired well with strawberries, so:

I pureed a handful of strawberries with about a teaspoon of sugar, a splash of water and one basil leaf, torn up.

I’m not really sure how I feel about this pop. On the one hand, the basil flavor is really strong, almost drowning out the flavor of the strawberries. I can’t say I really liked it. On the other hand, I couldn’t stop eating it. It was really interesting, but not in a negative way. Try it yourself, and tell me what you think!