Popsicles

Tomorrow, the relatives are coming!

One summer library trip, Alexander and I checked out this charming book, The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant. We had just recovered from our annual Campbell beach week, so her stories and illustrations of people everywhere had us laughing and making connections on just about every page. I've thought a lot about that book this week as we geared up for the car and the plane arriving tomorrow bearing our houseguests--our family...our relatives.

The house is clean, ordered, and prepared. The windows are washed, clean both on the inside and the outside, a feat rarely occurring at the same time. The dirtiest carpets were steam cleaned spot free, fresh sheets cover all beds and clean towels hang on all towel racks. The yard is trimmed, raked, mowed and truly, summer lovely

Our downstairs refrigerator is filled with fruits of the season--a watermelon, a cantaloupe, and boxes of both blueberries and peaches. There are two kinds of cookies in the freezer (you've got to try these peanut butter cookies!) along with frozen peach puree for baby Lydia. A pound cake sits on the counter with a canister of homemade granola right beside it.

But the totally whimsical and spontaneously fun thing I did in preparation was to make popsicles! I was inspired a week or so ago when I read this post on one of my favorite food blogs--Orangette. The very cool pop molds (we've come a long way from Dixie cups and tongue depressors) just arrived yesterday, and almost immediately, I began trying out some recipes. With frozen raspberries in our freezer, I made the "Raspberry Popsicles" featured on Orangette. Today, I found another great recipe for strawberry orange pops, and pulled out some just-June frozen strawberries to blend those up. I even found a recipe for "Rocky Road Pops" (which sound a bit like a fancy fudgsicle); I will probably try those out next week, when Alexander's Mama is away on retreat.

Here is the Strawberry Orange Popsicle recipe:

1 quart orange juice
2 cups strawberries fresh or frozen
3 tablespoons sugar *
1 cup vanilla yogurt

*(omit if using sweetened strawberries)

Blend till smooth or not-so-smooth, depending on preference. Pour into molds and freeze.

Made 12 - 2.5 oz. popsicles.

Pretty easy and very good!