It is tradition in Spain to eat twelve green grapes at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve. Last year, in San Sebastian, I made it through eight grapes. I do not love New Year's Eve--I am not good at staying up late and I don't like holidays where the traditions are not set up. But I like grapes. I am now very pro grapes for New Year's. The table after our New Year's Eve festivities last year (look closely for the uneaten grapes) Grape Popsicles
Ingredients Grapes and sparkling wine! Directions Chop up your grapes and drop them into the sparkling wine. Freeze until solid.
0 Comments
For christmas I received Nik Sharma's first cookboook, Season. I spend a lot of time following bay area food news, and this cookbook was my most desired item of 2018. The book, as expected, is phenomenal. After flipping through, I was drawn to the upside-down orange and fennel cornmeal cake. I had initially intended to make this cake for the holidays, but stopped. The flavors that seemed so alluring in a cake would certainly be delightful in a popsicle. Not quite. This popsicle is beyond bitter and intensely fennel-ey. Without the sweet fullness of cornmeal that (I imagine) rounds these flavors out, this popsicle attacks the mouth with no pause. If you love blood orange or fennel, you will love this. If you dislike either, this is not for you. The popsicle allows no space for passivity of the flavors. Blood Orange Fennel Popsicles
Yield: 6 popsicles | Prep Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 6 hours Ingredients 4 blood oranges 1/2 cup brown sugar Teaspoon of whole fennel seeds Directions Bring the flesh of the blood oranges and a 1/2 cup of water to a boil. Add brown sugar and reduce to a simmer, until the flesh has broken down and the mixture has reduced. Once you have the consistency you desire, stir in a few fennel seeds. Pour mixture into molds and freeze until solid. To serve, dip in honey or agave and roll in fennel seeds. The marketing team at Whole Foods had to do very little to convince me to purchase their newest 365 sparkling water flavor, ginger. I politely begged my family to dust off their sparkling water ranking skills and just like that, we had a 12 rack in the garage. I used the sparkling water in the popsicle, and the outcome was a little fizzy, a little gingery, and a lot festive. Popsicles break! Just one of the many powerful and life-applicable lessons I have learned from my year of making popsicles. Ginger Cranberry Popsicles
Yield: 6 popsicles | Prep Time: 3 hours | Total Time: 4 hours Ingredients Seeds from one pomegranate Ginger flavored sparkling water Directions If you don't have access to store-bought ginger flavored sparkling water, grate some ginger into a pot with a cup of water, add a little sugar, and let it reduce. Mix the ginger syrup in to regular sparkling water. Once your sparkling water has been acquired, fill your molds 1/3 of the way full and sprinkle in 1/3 of your pomegranate seeds. Wait an hour, and repeat two more times (remember to insert the popsicle stick before it is too late!) until your popsicle mold is full. Freeze until solid. Half a year of popsicles. Felt like a good halfway treat would be to work in some alliteration, thus the poached pear popsicle. This feels like an excellent slide from Thanksgiving into the holiday season. The cider brings in the fall warmth and the spices bring in the holiday festive flavors. I feel deeply in love with these tiny pears over the course of making this popsicle. Deeply. Poached Pear Popsicles
Yield: 6 popsicles | Prep Time: 1-2 hours | Total Time: 8 hours Ingredients 3 small pears 1 cup apple cider Orange or lemon peel 1 cinnamon stick 1 star anise pod Directions Simmer whole pears in apple cider, enough cups of water to submerge the pears completely, fruit peels, and spices until desired pear tenderness. Gently slice pears and fit into molds. Pour remaining poaching liquid into molds and freeze until solid. Satsumas and persimmons are some of fall's best orange fruits, so this popsicle just seems to make sense. Putting sparkling water in a popsicle is a bold move, as you can't predict how the popsicle will handle the carbonation. However, in the realm of popsicles, the stakes are low enough that you can typically afford to live dangerously. Satsuma Persimmon Popsicles
Yield: 6 popsicles | Prep Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 6 hours Ingredients 1 large or 2 small persimmons 1 cup satsuma juice 2 cups sparkling water Directions Using a mandoline's thinnest setting, cut very thin slices of persimmon. Fold slices into molds. Fill each mold 1/3 of the way full with satsuma juice. Fill the rest of the mold with sparkling water. Freeze until solid. Thanksgiving season is upon us. To get things started, I made a thanksgiving themed brunch for my house. The brunch needed a popsicle, so I went with cranberry-apple: cranberries and granny smith apples cooked low and slow in a big pot. When I think of Thanksgiving, I think of many things (buckle up, readers, for a long November of me talking about what I am grateful for). One main thing that I think of is Eve making popovers with cranberry butter. As children, Eve and I entered in multiple baking contests. For one Thanksgiving themed contest, Eve entered alone, with her popover and cranberry butter recipe. She didn't win. We never won. We were eleven year olds competing against actual bakeries in San Francisco. But she made a mean popover. All this to say that popovers (I made sage ones for this brunch to go with the eggs and the hash) and cranberries make me smile. Young competitors thanksgiving themed brunch menu of cranberry-orange morning rolls, maple+sweet potato+bacon hash, and sage popovers Cranberry Apple Popsicles
Yield: 6 popsicles | Prep Time: 1 hour | Total Time: 7 hours Ingredients 4 granny smith apples, peeled and chopped 1 cup fresh cranberries 1/2 cup brown sugar 1 cup orange juice Directions Boil apples and cranberries in 4 cups of water until broken down. Add sugar and simmer until fragrant. Strain and add orange juice to liquid to taste (depends on how tart you want your popsicle to be). Pour in molds and freeze until solid. Serve alone or with sparkling water. I wanted to make a spooky popsicle for October. I did not want to make THIS spooky of a popsicle for October. I was the toddler/elementary schooler/middle schooler/high schooler/ current person who was terrified of most Halloween decorations, costumes, etc. I think these popsicles exist firmly on the terrifying side of Halloween, and not on the cute, fun side that I guess I thought I would arrive at while...trying to make a blood popsicle (?). You never know where art will take you. Lemon Pomegranate Blood Popsicles
Yield: 6 popsicles | Prep Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 6 hours Ingredients 2 1/2 cups lemonade 1/3 c pomegranate juice Directions Pour lemonade into molds and freeze until solid. As the popsicles near the end of their freezing period, put pomegranate juice into a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce juice until it has formed a thick syrup, about 20 minutes. Once the popsicles are solid, remove them from molds and place upright in freezer. Pour pomegranate syrup over popsicles. Freeze until syrup is solid. Apple cider means mulling spices on the stove, making my house smell delicious. For this week's apple cider popsicle, I decided to bring my housemates to an apple orchard, give them an apple cider popsicle, and see what apple cider means to them. Griffin said "to me hot apple cider means coming inside from playing in the yard with my siblings and getting warm by the fire. It means playing scrabble with my dad and watching movies with my mom. It means the first day of the year when it gets dark early but you don’t mind."
Apple Cider Popsicles
Yield: 6 popsicles | Prep Time: 5 minutes | Total Time: 5 hours Ingredients 2 1/2 cups apple juice 1 tbsp cinnamon Directions Whisk cinnamon into apple juice. Pour into molds and freeze until solid. It is surprising that a plum popsicle didn't come around until this first week of September, as most days of the summer involved our kitchen counter littered with around 10 to 30 harvested plums waiting to be consumed. But, nonetheless, plum popsicle inspiration didn't strike until about a week ago, when I ordered a pizza so spicy I couldn't finish a single slice. The menu said "ricotta, plum, and chile pizza" and my mind read "ricotta and plum pizza" (pizza pictured in this week's email blast). After one bite it became clear that the chile was the dominant ingredient and that I had made a huge mistake. Feeling defeated by my order but not ready to give up altogether, I translated the pizza disappointment into a popsicle. The popsicle is not too spicy and certainly not too sweet. It takes the exciting tartness and sweetness of a plum and joins it with the fear and allure of a touch of spice.
Spicy Plum Popsicles Yield: 6 popsicles | Prep Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 6 hours Ingredients 3 red plums 1 black plum 2 dried thai chiles Directions Roughly chop red plums and bring them to an eventual boil with enough water to cover their flesh. Once boiling, break down any large chunks of plum and add in thinly sliced chili peppers. Let mixture simmer until fairly reduced. Fill molds 80% full with mixture. Thinly slice black plum and wedge one slice into each mold. Freeze until solid. On a recent run through Wilder Ranch, Fiona and I stopped abruptly as the intense smell of spearmint had taken over the trail. An enormous mint bush had made its home on the trail edge and was spilling its fragrance everywhere. We enjoyed the scent for a bit longer and then continued on our run, also passing many wild blackberry bushes on the trail. By the time we returned to the car, this popsicle had been born. This popsicle is a pretty block of ice. It is not creamy or soft like most of the other popsicles have been, as the base is not fruit juice or dairy, but water. It is still a good popsicle, if you are a patient popsicle consumer. Blackberry Mint Popsicles
Yield: 6 popsicles | Prep Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 5 hours Ingredients 2 tbsp mint leaves 2 tsp honey 1/2 c blackberries Directions Place mint leaves and honey into a blender with two cups of water. Blend until mint is broken down. Pour into molds and add as many blackberries as you see fit. Freeze until solid. |