Oh my goodness, it's hot outside! So I brought out the Zoku again today for our second batch of popsicles. This time I went with kiwi. So yummy! I started with the recipe on the Whole Foods Kids blog, but I decided to jazz it up a little by adding strawberries, some lemon and a cucumber, for good measure. My recipe is at the end of the post. I made 9 of these, so we have more to look forward to tomorrow!
Our fresh ingredients
Kiwi Pops
- 4 kiwis, peeled and diced (reserve a few slices for inserting into molds)
- 4 large strawberries
- juice from 1/2 lemon
- 1 small cucumber, peeled and diced (I used a small pickling cucumber)
- 1/8 cup honey
- 3/4 cup water
Blend all ingredients (except for reserved kiwi slices) in blender until smooth. Place reserved kiwi slices aong sides of popsicle mold, and pour mixture into mold. Freeze for several hours, unless you have a Zoku. Enjoy in the heat!
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.
That's what things feel like these days. Dance and baseball are wrapping up and swim team is in full swing, and we've had several other events on our calendar like tiger rescues, birthdays and trips to the lake. I bought myself a huge dry erase calendar and posted it on my kitchen door so I can keep everyone straight. Who goes where, when, with whom, why and how. I like to think that we've met the challenge of multiple acvitities with multiple kids with some degree of calm and ease, but I'll admit to more than my fair share of stressful moments! Next week we'll be down to just swimming and drums, so we're looking forward to some laid back days. In the meantime, here's a slew of pictures from our recent events. Seriously, grab your coffee and say goodbye to a chunk of your day.
We spend a few Saturdays ago in Pittsboro at the Carolina Tiger Rescue. Who knew there was such a great rescue facility right in our backyard?
I think we saw 10 tigers, though I believe there were more
The kinkajou was a big hit. The Rescue web site said they needed donations of bananas, so we brought a few bunches and the kids were tickled that this little guy ate one of their bananas.
When we got back to the visitor's center, a big box of eggs was sitting on one of the tables. The kids were pretty sure that they were tiger eggs. :o
While in Pittsboro, we went exploring in the quaint downtown area and found S&T's Soda Shop. A gem! What is that gooey mess on my plate? I'm glad you asked. It's a pimento cheese burger. Oh my. I do have to say that my pimento cheese is a tad bit better, but I'd never thought of putting it on a burger and I will definitely be trying this at home. The kids all had interesting homemade sodas with lunch - Cherry Smash, Vanilla Pepsi, Cherry Coke, Chocolate Coke. They were wired for the Tiger Rescue! Then we went back after our visit to the tigers for ice cream. Hi-Hat and I had floats, Fancy had a "trash" sundae (I think the flavor Trash is a similar idea to a Zombie at Sunset Slush or an everything bagel), Rella had mint chocolate chip ice cream, Grandma H had a Moose Tracks ice cream soda, and Geof had a peanut butter cup shake. Next time we might skip the rescue and head straight for the soda shoppe!
our floats spewed like volcanos for quite some time!
Last weekend we were invited by one of Geof's colleagues to his home on Lake Gaston. The kids had a ball swimming and tubing in the lake and keep asking when we can go back!
I was so excited that Hi-Hat wanted to try tubing! He loved it.
Suffice it to say that I had a very strange day at the lake and muddled through with a migraine headache, so pulling off the road on the way home to watch the sun set was a welcome end to the day.
This week Rella and I went to 2 ice cream parties at school to celebrate the end of kindergarden and first grade. Here's Hi-Hat with one of his best buddies. We're gonna miss this guy!
This is why I love Hi-Hat's first grade class. In the midst of eating ice cream, the kids are reading books and are so excited about talking to each other about them! What a great bunch of kids!
Hi-Hat's first grade class - this afternoon they will be second graders!
After Hi-Hat's ice cream party we headed over to Fancy's ice cream party. First the class performed all of the songs they had learned together this year.
Fancy with her best school friends
Are you tired yet? Keep reading - there are more pictures to come!
In the midst of our being so busy, Rella turned 3! We had her party 2 weekends ago, but we did manage a pizza and cupcake celebration at home on June 1. Lots of pictures, but I'll just go with this one. It suits her. Happy birthday Rella!
Here's Rella wanting me to stop taking her picture playing with her new bubble machine
And speaking of bubbles, Fancy has a dance recital this weekend - Sleeping Beauty. She will be a tap dancing bubble in the scene where Snow White directs the dwarfs to clean up before they can eat. Here are a few pictures from her dress rehearsal this week. I yanked her out of the pool after swim practice and we sprinted home for a quick costume change including hair and makeup and she was ready to go on stage in southeast Raleigh a mere 1 hour later!
Fancy and this sweet dancer carpooled together to dance this year and have been buddines since they began preschool together when they were 2. They are growing into such gorgeous girls!
We're excited to see the whole show this weekend!
Oh, yes, there's still more. Now on to swimming. We threw the big kids onto the swim team at the pool we joined this year thinking it would be a great way for them to learn to swim. So far so good! Both have learned freestyle and are confident about going off the diving boards and swimming in the deep end. Great progress after just a few weeks! Fancy has really taken to it, and while all my kids love the water and learning to swim, the thrill of competition and the lure of a ribbon are really motivating Fancy. She is working so hard, and it's been fun to see her find something she seems to love and is good at. Since Hi-Hat discovered drumming so early, we've been kind of hoping Fancy would find something she's crazy about, too. Hi-Hat still has some work to do on his strokes and endurance (he gets winded pretty easily with his asthma), so he decided to sit out the time trials and do a few more lessons before swimming in a meet (the realization that he would have to swim 25 backstroke and fly at the time trials sent him into a tailspin that night). So here are some pictures of Fancy at the time trials.
Totally in her element at the time trials. After finishing 2nd in her first heat, she was overheard asking Geof, "second? how could anyone swim faster than that?"
Don't mess with #21. She was so upset that we scrubbed off her number that night. She said she needed it for the whole summer so she could swim in all the meets.
"Swimmers step up"
Her dive needs a little work :)
I love this clip of her backstroking (she's in the center lane, hot pink goggles)! She had tried the stroke a couple days ago and was not finding much success with it - lots of flailing and putting her feet down. And then SOMEHOW, it all clicked during the time trial and she did it all by herself for the first time! I'm sorry, but I was a stunned, proud mama!
OK, now on to baseball. Fancy had her last game last night. I could watch her play all day. Something about a little girl in a baseball uniform - I love her hair, her shoes, the way she sticks out her tongue when she's concentrating, the way she lays it all out there when she runs. She just may be my sporty one.
How Hi-Hat passes the time during Fancy's games
Rella's summer feet - polish, sparkles and tattoos
AND FINALLY, a gem of a picture of my Rella on a particularly good hair day (but not so good smile for the camera day)
Oh, wait, I fibbed. Here's one more. One day this week I had big plans to clean out my closet and make a list of the things I need to pick up at Lowe's to keep it organized (like hooks, storage shelves, etc). Instead, Fancy came to me with this cute little craft she had made - a stuffed animal made out of construction paper, staples and napkins. Very cute, but I was imagining paper cuts and staple scrapes from snuggling with it overnight (she is madly in love with her stuffed animals and they are her prized possessions. Like the Velveteen rabbit, I am quite sure her animals are also real). She asked me how to make a "real" stuffed animal, so rather than clean out my closet, she and I hauled out the sewing machine and worked together to make a little stuffed rabbit. She drew the pattern and then we cut, stitched and stuffed her. Fun!
I absolutely adore the way she draws animals, and now we have a stuffed one to always remember her drawings!
Visit the new blog site for my brother and sister-in-law's new woodworking workshop! Black Creek Workshop specializes in architectural and decorative arts woodworking and conservation. Ben and Maeve do beautiful work, and we have several pieces in our home (bed, custom cabinetry, built-in shelving, custom free-standing shelves, and other household furniture). They are located in Franklin, VA, though their work takes them to various locations in the east. If you ever need custom work, check them out!
