My first memories of St. Patrick's Day are specific moments. The night Fiona and I saw green lights coming from the bush across the street: peering beyond the concrete from behind our expansive windows, kneeled against the couch, already in our pajamas, all of the books mom and dad had read us about leprechauns becoming real. Or the day we Irish danced in the back of the local Irish pub for so long that my legs gave out and my little wig-laden body fell to the floor. But my strongest memory of St. Patrick's Day is not a scene. It is a thread--a constantly changing image--not in one specific kitchen or time. It is my dad, wearing a flannel and adidas sweatpants, hands sticky with buttermilked-up flour, peering over his favorite Jesuit bread baking book, making his yearly week of Irish Soda Bread loaves. He would make it at night, with promises of us being able to eat it come morning. But he would inevitably cave, cutting us off a bit of the large, flat loaf before bed. Of course, an irish soda bread popsicle would NOT work. So instead, this week's popsicle celebrates St. Patrick's day in a much more light-hearted way: lucky charms cereal milk!
Cereal Milk Panna Cotta Popsicles Yield: 6 popsicles | Prep Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 6 hours Ingredients 1/2 cup of your favorite cereal 2 cups milk 1/3 cup brown sugar ½ tsp sea salt 1 (1/4-ounce) packet unflavored gelatin Directions Combine cereal and milk in a large jar and mix aggressively. Let stand at room temperature to infuse for about 20-30 minutes. Strain cereal out. Add in brown sugar and salt. Warm 1/2 cup of cereal milk and pour gelatin in. Once homogeneous, mix in the rest of the cereal milk. Pour mixture into molds, populating with extra cereal if you wish. Freeze until solid.
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In the summer of 2008 I worked at Novakovich Orchards preparing apricots to be dried. My role was to stand in front of a large, waist-high flat, cut each apricot in half, remove the pit, and return the apricot to the flat. I managed a small part of the apricot-drying process, but I took pride in the entire chain of events (picking, slicing, drying, packaging, etc). Whenever a customer came and purchased a bag of chocolate-dipped fruits, I smiled. My work station was conveniently placed in the shade of the orchard's market stand, so I got to observe the comings and goings of the customers. The older girl (I was eleven, so I imagine she was around thirteen) who worked the cash register had a long, thin ponytail, a fantastic half-apron to store her cash, and a sense of authority over the market that I lusted after. I wanted nothing more than to ring up orders and maintain polite conversation with the hungry customers of Saratoga, California. While I spent the summer with my eyes on the cash register, I managed to also have even bigger dreams. The Jonas Brothers were coming to Shoreline Amphitheatre, and Eve and I were saving up go see them. Each time I slipped and slit my thumb a bit, or opened an apricot to find nothing but maggots, or had to decline a hangout invitation to go to the high school's pool for the afternoon (that is a joke-my only companions at eleven were Eve and Fiona-Eve making her own Jonas Brothers money and Fiona to my left, also slicing apricots) I focused on the image of Nick Jonas crooning his songs as I breathed in the warm summer air of the bay area's greatest open-air arena. That slightly shorter and plenty tanner version of me is still very much alive this week as I present the apricot pudding pop and listen to the Jonas Brother's new song. Life is round. Apricot Rice Pudding Popsicles
Yield: 6 popsicles | Prep Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 4 hours Ingredients 1 1/4 cups white rice, rinsed 2 1/2 cups water 1 tsp kosher salt 1 cinnamon stick 2 1/2 cups milk 1 cup sugar Zest of 1 lemon 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/3 cup diced dried apricots Directions Bring the rice, water, and salt to a boil and then cover and let simmer until most of the water is absorbed. Add in the milk, sugar, and zest and bring to a boil once more. Again, let the mixture simmer until all of the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla and apricots. Pour into molds. Freeze until solid. I had always planned to release this fantastically-summery pop in the depths of winter. I imagined-in mid-July when I made it-that I would need a boost of minty green, backyard sunshine. Boy was I right. As I write this (Thursday morning), snow is falling, our heat is sort-of cranking and the wind is whipping past my corner-of-the-house bedroom...This bit of summer in a popsicle is much needed.
One afternoon, with my cousin Zoe in town, I made mint popsicles that we then dipped in chocolate. It was a messy, delicious affair, all done in shorts (a concept I can barely imagine at this moment) and with little regard for responsibility, chapped lips, or snow boots. Aah. Yesterday's birthday, as all birthdays should be, was spent eating birthday popsicles and contemplating our ever present hurtle towards the end. I kid! Not about the popsicle part, though. Birthday Cake Popsicles
Yield: 6 popsicles | Prep Time: 1 hour | Total Time: 7 hours Ingredients One packet pudding mix Confetti birthday cake, baked in a sheet pan and cut into cubes Sprinkles Directions Prepare pudding according to instructions. Mix sprinkles into pudding. Place cubes of cake into molds and pour pudding in around them. Freeze until solid. The feeling of horror I felt when I realized I didn't have a cherry popsicle yet in the project was...immense. Cherries are difficult to work with and fantastic to eat. Tangerines are also difficult to work with and fantastic to eat. For this popsicle, I only dealt with the difficulty of one of the ingredients. Cherries. I pitted them. For the tangerines, I bought tangerine juice. If you can't find tangerine juice, use orange (or really any citrus juice you like). Cherry Tangerine Popsicles
Ingredients Cherries, pitted Tangerine (or citrus) juice Directions Add desired amount of pitted cherries to molds. Pour tangerine juice to fill. Freeze until solid. What is my favorite moment of the Dim Sum experience? Is it the anticipation leading up to the meal, the memories of tall ceilings and orchestrated commotion inside a packed restaurant? Is it the joy of the classics - knowing that you love how something tastes and feeling the joy of its dependability? Or is it the joy of the new - trying something you and your group have never had? No. It is none of these things. It is the moment at the end of the meal when you believe yourself to be stuffed but then, glorious before you arrives a perfect round of mango pudding and above it, a thick curl of sweetened condensed milk. Ha! I love mango pudding. Mango Pudding Popsicles
Yield: 6 popsicles | Prep Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 6 hours Ingredients 2 1/2 cups cold water 1 1/4 cups sugar 1 lb frozen mango pieces 2 (1/4-ounce) packets unflavored gelatin 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup sweetened condensed milk Directions Pour a bit of sweetened condensed milk into the bottom of your molds. Begin to freeze. Place 3/4 cup of the water and 1/2 cup of the sugar in a small saucepan over high heat. Stir until sugar is dissolved and mixture comes to a boil. Remove from heat. Place mango pieces in a blender and add in just-boiled sugar mixture. Blend until smooth. Bring 1 1/4 cups water to a boil and pour over remaining sugar, gelatin, salt, and 1/2 cup water. Mix until everything is dissolved and uniform. Combine mango mixture and gelatin mixture. Pour into molds. Freeze until solid. This week's popsicle combines the josephine raspberry, known for its large fruit and rich flavor, and the bearss lime, known for its seedless nature and sweeter-than-normal juice. There is nothing more enjoyable to me than seeking out regional varieties of a fruit. I have been a long time fan of the bearss lime, as the nearby UC Santa Cruz campus keeps it in many bay area farmer's markets. It felt right to combine this lime with a gifted Josephine raspberry syrup. Raspberry Lime Popsicles
Yield: 6 popsicles | Prep Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes | Total Time: 6 hours Ingredients Peel and juice of 3 limes 1/2 cup sugar Raspberry syrup Directions Fill bottom third of molds with raspberry syrup. Freeze until somewhat solid. Mix together lime juice and sugar. Pour lime juice into final two-thirds of mold. Arrange peel at top of mold. Freeze until solid. At first, the plan was to do chocolate-covered-banana popsicles. But then a pantry-cleanout revealed a jar of bourbon caramel sauce. The popsicle changed direction. Dipped Banana Popsicles
Ingredients Bananas Dipping sauce (caramel, chocolate, etc) Directions Cut peeled bananas into desired size. Insert popsicle sticks. Freeze until almost solid. Bring dipping sauce to dippable temperature (for chocolate, melt; for caramel, warm up slightly in a water bath). Dip frozen banana into sauce. Place on wax paper. Freeze until solid. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and there is no better way to start your day than furiously licking a parfait pop to consume it before it melts. Morning Parfait Popsicles
Ingredients Granola Honey Yogurt Fruit Directions Mix a little honey and water into your favorite granola and press it into the bottom of your molds. Spoon yogurt over the granola, add fruit on top, and insert popsicle stick. Freeze until solid. On Wednesday, Paige remarked how good cold carrots are and how disgusting frozen carrots are. I had been tossing around the idea of doing a savory vegetable juice popsicle in the new year, being a devoted juice cleanser. I combined these two things - one, a question of whether or not frozen carrot juice would be as upsetting as a frozen carrot, and two, whether or not a vegetable juice popsicle would work. The answers respectively are: it is just as upsetting, and no, it does not work. Carrot popsicles are only for the curious, the brave, or rabbits with strong teeth.
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