Zoku Haiku

stout little darling

chilling out in my freezer

for hot summer days

And that's all the haiku you'll get from me tonight.  I couldn't recall what a haiku was other than some sort of poem I was probably quizzed on in 10th grade, but the word haiku sounds good with zoku and I wanted to use it in the post title.  So I spent my valuable Saturday night relearning and writing a haiku for your reading pleasure.  You're welcome.

I love my Zoku.  What is a Zoku?  Well if you don't know you're obviously you're not on facebook and didn't get the directive from me to go look it up.  You've had several days now people. But for those not in the know, a Zoku is a popsicle freezer that lets you make 3 homemade popsicles in 7 minutes!  SEVEN minutes!  I first saw this wonder product at Christmas-time, but when Geof tried to order one as a gift, they were out of stock.  My contact at Williams Sonoma (who also happens to be Hi-Hat's first grade teacher) said they flew off the shelves and out of the catalog and they were rarely back in stock. That was a shame because I really wanted to use her discount.  Then I tried to win one at the school carnival, but I guess we didn't stuff the raffle box enough.  So, I had put the Zoku out of my mind.  This week, Geof took Hi-Hat to the mall so they could hang out in the Apple Store.  While I was certain their backbones would melt like popsicles left on the counter and they would come home with an iPad, they instead came home with a Zoku.  I am so proud of those boys!

Today I made my first batch of popsicles.  Success!  This thing really works - does your iPad have a popsicle-making app? I didn't think so.  You can make up to three batches before refreezing the Zoku, so if you move quickly enough, that's 9 pops in about 25 minutes.  Not too bad.  I am now searching for interesting popsicle recipes, and I was happy to find some great ones from Whole Foods Kids.  Here's our first Zoku experience.

Our simple ingredients.  Recipe to follow at the end. 

Any guesses as to what all went into these pops?

Ingredients blended and ready to pour

The recipe made so much that I decided to freeze a batch "the old way" using my bomb pop molds.  These won't be ready for hours.  How 1985...

The first batch in the Zoku.  They'll be done in 7 minutes and we could actually watch them freeze from the outside in.

Ding! They're done. The handy dandy little orange gripper tool is used to wrestle them out.

ooooh . . . aaaaah . . . fancy!  It worked! I thought they looked pretty good for a first try.

Don't you want to come over for popsicles?  I just need 7 minutes notice.

Kid approved.  Consumed in less than 7 minutes.

OK, here's the kicker.  I had made this big batch of homemade chicken noodle soup the other week and put it away in the freezer, so that was today's lunch.  It was so yummy.  I had started with a whole chicken and made my own broth and everything.  The deal was that the kids had to finish their soup or they would not get a popsicle.  It was a struggle, but they got it done.  They earned their frozen strawberry reward.  Oh wait, did I say strawberry?  Had you been thinking strawberry all along?  WRONG!  These were zucchini popsicles disguised with strawberries.  Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!  The kids loved them and fell into fits of laughter when I told them what it was they had actually eaten.  Yes kids, you choked down my delicous soup for frozen zucchini on a stick. You really couldn't taste the zucchini, but they definitely had a more "gourmet taste."  Head on over to the Whole Food Kids blog for the recipe*.  A good way to use up those Produce Box veggies.  Now I need an eggplant popsicle recipe... Next time I'm making the blueberry popsicles that include lettuce in the mix.  That is, if I don't make Mexican hot chocolate pops first. Or the kiwi pops.  Oy, I will be making pops all day.  No wait, for just about an hour, because this thing freezes them in SEVEN minutes (in case you missed that point).

*I should note that I thought the mix needed a little extra oomph, so I added 2 tsp of Nutella.  That gave the pops a strawberry flavor with a hint of chocolate.