Day 183 — Patriotic Stripe Ice Pop

I’m back! Did you miss me? Probably not, thanks to my wonderful MYSTERY GUEST BLOGGERS!, who swooped in and made a pop for me last night while I hunkered down and tried not to get sick. They did a great job, and it was nice to wake up this morning and giggle through their post instead of feeling guilty that I skipped a day.

Anyway, It’s the first of July, so I’ve decided to prepare for the upcoming holiday by making red, white and blue ice pops. First up, a healthy, juice based version:

Berry blend smoothie for the red layer, lemonade for the white layer, and a blueberry smoothie for the blue layer.

I used two ounces of each juice for the three pops, but didn’t measure otherwise. They came out pretty even, in spite of that:

Honestly, these came out looking more like neopolitan ice pops than patriotic ice pops.  The blueberry layer, in particular, was more brown than blue.  But they still looked nice and the kids who ate them assured me they tasted good anyway.

Day 164 — Very Berry Lemonade Ice Pops

In all honesty, today’s pop was more about using up the last bits and pieces of last week’s produce delivery than about any specific recipe, but despite that I really like what I came up with:

These are the last of the last of this season’s strawberries. Bye-bye until next year!

I pureed a handful of each of the berries with about an equal amount of lemonade. I deliberately left the puree rough — I wanted chunks of fruit in my ice pop. The high proportion of lemonade to fruit in this recipe made that thickness possible ( a straight fruit puree would have been too hard to pour if I’d left it chunky).

This pop worked really well. Al three flavors blended well enough that I really couldn’t detect a dominant flavor. It was a light, sweet and happy popsicle.

Day 144 — Blueberry Strawberry Lemonade Ice Pops

This week, I had the rare treat of having two of my favorite fruits in season, locally, at the same time. The kids and I have been eating strawberries all month, and now blueberries have shown up in my produce box. I figured I’d take the opportunity to make them into an ice pop:

I pureed a handful of each berry with a splash of lemonade.  The blueberries didn’t blend in smoothly and the mixture turned out more red than purple, but it still looked good.  And so did the pops:

This pop tasted ok, but to be honest, they didn’t turn out as I’d hoped.  I didn’t really intend for these to be a lemonade-centered pop (as those of you who saw this post before I edited know).  I wanted the berries to shine through, but in this pop all you could really taste was lemon.  I am going to have to try this one again, with plain sugar and water instead of the lemonade.  Tune in tomorrow…