Cooking With Sara: Fancy in the Freezer

This week's recipe is simple and doesn't require the stove or oven - score! I was inspired by the recent heat wave that hit my town and by the latest issue of Cuisine At Home magazine. Even tho I read that magazine from cover to cover, I never get around to actually making the recipes. Weird, I know! But this one caught my eye. And I did, after all, promise to post some kind of food preparation entry thing each week.

Under normal (read: plenty of time to mull over recipes and plan grocery lists and use the oven) circumstances, I wouldn't have made these. Raspberry and mint, together? But after I thought about it, yummm. You see, the smell of fresh raspberries instantly reminds me of my grandparents' house in the summer. They always had a huge patch of raspberries, and my gramma would pick a bowl of them in the early mornings before I had even woken up. Grampa would eat the berries with fresh cream from a nearby dairy. And fresh mint? That smell reminds me of the evenings at their house. Their house is in an agricultural area, and in the summer evenings, the mint would be cut and harvested, filling the entire valley with the smell of fresh mint. Ahhhh.....pure summer.

Raspberry Mint Popsicles*

4-5 cups fresh raspberries

1 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

1-2 Tbsp fresh mint, minced

Stir water and sugar in a large glass measure or bowl. Heat in microwave for one minute and stir to dissolve sugar. Puree the raspberries in a blender until smooth. Strain puree into glass measure through a fine mesh sieve, pressing solids to extract as much juice as possible. Stir in mint and then pour into popsicle molds. Freeze for 4 hours or until firm.

* or, as I'll now be referring to them - Gramma's Popsicles

Peach Creamsicles*

3 cups fresh (or frozen) sliced peaches

1 cup vanilla ice cream or..Coconut Milk Ice Cream!!

1/2 cup peace juice or nectar**

1 tsp. vanilla

Puree all ingredients together in a blender until smooth. Strain puree through a fine mesh sieve, pressing solids to extract as much puree as possible. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze for 4 hours or until firm.

* I made this with nectarines because I had them on hand. And because, yum!

** I used OJ because, again, I had it on hand. And I wasn't making a trip to the store for 1/2 cup in 90 degree weather, nope.

Mmmmmm...fresh mint. Too bad you didn't spring for a scratch n' sniff monitor.



Smashing the raspberries through a fine mesh sieve. Isn't my pink heart spatula just the cutest?

This. This, this, this. This is The. Freaking. Bomb. I don't care if you're one of those people who can have dairy and la la la, life is spectacular, and isn't real butter just so good on fresh corn? Shush. You will love this too, I swear. It's made from coconut milk, so you should think coconut flavor is good, obviously. But, man alive, this ice cream is freaking amazing. I have to eat it with a tiny spoon so that I don't inhale the entire container in one sitting. Much love to Kristen for the 3 pounds I've gained since reading her recipe using this ;)


But let me explain: See, they were super cute last night when I taste tested a raspberry one. But I was so swamped with my Etsy orders that I decided to postpone a photo until this morning when they were good and frozen. And, indeed, they were good and frozen. So much so that I had to run hot water over the cheapy Ikea mold to even get them dislodged. And then, well, I got distracted, see. I'm kinda extremely prone to distraction. Yeah. I got carried away with the packing tape and lil freezer packs and the Etsy boxes, that I forgot about my adorably yummy popsicles sitting in the sink, all lonesome. And melting. The perfectionist in me was appalled and wanted to wait until tonight to snap another photo for you. But then, it was just so funny and so ME, that I couldn't resist posting this one anyway.