Homemade Cherry Lime Yogurt Popsicles

What happens when you’re bored in the summer and a former Michgander who is SUPER excited by gorgeous, late season cherries in the grocery store? POPSICLES!

See that photo below, those beautiful cherries are are almost as big as the lime in the background! Yum. This popsicle tasted a lot like store-bought cherry yogurt but less sweet and with a little extra tang from the lime soaked into the cherries. Mmm.

CHERRY LIME YOGURT POPSICLES

• 1 cup of cherries, pits removed and chopped into bits
• 1 Tbl sugar
• 1 Tbl lime juice
• 7 oz Fage 0% yogurt (one single serving package)

1. Chop up your cherries (I cut them into 8ths), removing the pits as you go (if you don’t have a cherry pitter).
2. In a bowl, macerate the cherries in the sugar and lime juice for at least 30 minutes, but no more than an hour.
3. Combine the yogurt with the soupy cherry mixture.
4. Spoon the mixture into your favorite popsicle molds, using a chopstick to knock out as many bubbles as possible, insert popsicle sticks or the handles that go with your mold before freezing.
5. Freeze for at least 4 hours before serving.
6. To remove your popsicles from the mold, place the mold in a glass of room temperature water for about 3 minutes to soften the edges and make it easier to remove the popsicle from the mold.

Nutritional Info: 3-4 servings, depending on your popsicle mold size. 1 WW PointsPlus each.

Read Full Post »

Curried Coconut Popcorn

Wednesday night was a pre-wedding potluck for some new/local friends. I made this Curried Coconut Popcorn as an appetizer for a potluck and people went gaga over it! This recipe will definitely be joining my regular repertoire of potluck contributions, it’s got that sweet, salty, crunchy thing going for it plus it’s vegan and gluten free. While I am neither vegan nor gluten free, I do have a lot of food allergies/sensitivities and like making things that everyone can eat.

Do you have a favorite home method for popping corn?  I use the paper bag in the  microwave method myself, but with 2 squirts of cooking spray (I use grape seed oil) instead of olive oil and rolling down/folding the top of the bag tightly instead of stapling it.

Curried Coconut Popcorn

3/4 c popping corn (I used 1/2 blue and 1/2 yellow corn)

cooking spray, if using the microwave method – see above

coconut oil, if using the stovetop method

3/4 c coconut chips, toasted

3/4 c raisins (dark or golden)

2 heaping Tbs coconut oil

3/4 tsp curry powder

3/4 tsp ginger powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 Tbl coconut sugar

1) Pop your popcorn using your favorite method*. Keep a large bowl on standby for mixing/serving the popcorn in.

2) You can lightly toast your coconut chips while making popcorn, if the chips are older a little spritz of cooking spray can help them be less chewy. I made a tinfoil tray and toasted mine in the toaster oven using the “light” toast setting.

3) In a small bowl (I used a 6 oz ramekin), melt your coconut oil for 10-15 seconds in the microwave, just to get it warm.

4) Add the seasonings (curry, ginger, salt, and sugar) to the coconut oil.

5) Put all the popcorn in a large bowl and pour the seasoned coconut oil over it, shake/stir to coat.

6) Add the raisins and coconut chips and shake to combine.

7) Let cool to room temp (about 10-15 min) and then keep covered until you’re ready to serve (no more than 2 hours).

*If you’re going the microwave route for this recipe, pop only 1/4 cup of popcorn at a time, and use a new paper bag for all three rounds.

Credit where credit is due: this recipe was inspired by Naturally Ella and A Pinch of Glitter.

Read Full Post »

I love to cook but hate reading recipes

I was so excited to can caramelized onions and gingered carrots (made separately, canned at the same time) tomorrow that I neglected to read all the way to the bottom of the recipe instructions before going to the farmers market this evening. Boo.

The good news is that I read the recipe BEFORE Ben started slicing onions because we learned that we’d need a pressure canner! Oops. We don’t have one of those, or even the space to store one if we did. Well, if we did I might de-throne the meat slow cooker, which we really only use for Thanksgiving, and hide it somewhere outside of the kitchen. I’m 99% certain that I’d use a pressure canner at least 3x more than our jumbo slow cooker (good for when we need it, awful space-sucker when we don’t).

Also, today was the last Wednesday night Farmers Market for the year. Sad. I stocked up on lots of stuff for the winter: organic parsley (to mince and freeze), organic butternut squash for Friday night, local organic Gala apples, a big bag of local popping corn, and fresh whole wheat tortillas (also to freeze).

Anyone out there in the blog-o-sphere have any ideas on preserving 2-5 lbs of carrots WITHOUT a pressure canner?

Read Full Post »