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Category Archives: in the kitchen

Homemade Fruit Sauce

2 / 22 / 202 / 23 / 20

Homemade Fruit Sauce | Mama Papa Bubba

Homemade fruit sauce…  One of my go-to snack options for the kiddos!  You’ll often find my freezer PILED high with little pots of it and for good reason.  It’s super easy to make, it keeps well, it defrosts quickly, and it’s a healthful addition to lunches and snacks. Low on fresh fruits and veggies?  Pull out some fruit sauce! Produce on its last legs?  Turn it into fruit sauce!

Homemade Fruit Sauce | Mama.Papa.Bubba.{this post contains affiliate links}

You can make fruit sauce with all kinds of different fruits, but apples and pears are my go-to ‘base’ fruits.  Both are grown right here in the Okanagan and since both store pretty well, I can pretty much find locally grown varieties year round.  That and when cooked and blended, they both have a good texture for fruit sauce.  I add all kinds of other things to our fruit sauces, but I almost always start with apples and / or pears first.

I get so many questions about how to make fruit sauce at home and it really couldn’t be easier…  No recipe required!

Here’s what we do…  First,  wash all of our apples and pears.  Sometimes I soak them in a water and vinegar solution for a few minutes beforehand and sometimes I don’t, but I always run them under clean water and kind of rub them to help remove any residue that might be on them.

Homemade Fruit Sauce | Mama.Papa.Bubba.

Once your apples and pears are clean, you’re ready to make your fruit sauce!  I like to make big batches, but it doesn’t really matter how many apples and pears you have…  Just use what you have on hand.

Homemade Fruit Sauce | Mama.Papa.Bubba.

Okay, onto the pot…  I really like using a thick-bottom pot like my Lodge cast iron dutch oven for fruit sauce because it means I can basically forget about it for an hour, but if you don’t have one – no worries.  You’ll just maybe want to check in on your fruit now and then to make sure it doesn’t burn / stick to the bottom.

Homemade Fruit Sauce | Mama.Papa.Bubba.

Alright, here it is… Remove the cores from all of your apples and pears, toss the fruit into your pot, add a tiny bit of water (for this giant pot full of fruit I add 1/4 cup of water – for a smaller pot I might only add a tablespoon or two), cover it, and turn your element onto the very lowest setting.  Every stove is slightly different of course so you’ll definitely want to be more attentive on your first go, but we leave a big pot of fruit covered on low without touching it for about 45 minutes to an hour usually.  A smaller pot of fruit will need less time of course.

Homemade Fruit Sauce | Mama.Papa.Bubba.

When we come back at the 45 minute / hour mark, the fruit is soft all the way through.  You basically want to be able to mash it with a fork and have it fall apart on you.

Homemade Fruit Sauce | Mama.Papa.Bubba.

After our fruit has had a chance to cool, we transfer it, along with any liquid it’s produced, into our Vitamix blender and process it using the smoothie setting (50 seconds).

Homemade Fruit Sauce | Mama.Papa.Bubba.

If your blender is having a hard time at any point, feel free to add little bits of water at a time to help it out.  The goal is to have it turn out completely smooth, so don’t be afraid to run it for more than 45 seconds if needed either.

Homemade Fruit Sauce | Mama.Papa.Bubba.

When you’re done, you should have a perfectly smooth fruit sauce that can be transferred into mini mason jars and put into the fridge or freezer for storage.  (Just be sure to leave some space at the top of the jar if you plan on freezing yours.)

Homemade Fruit Sauce | Mama.Papa.Bubba.

Plain apple and / or pear sauce is absolutely delicious all on its own, but we often mix in other fruits and veggies too!  Grae and Sam love the different flavours and it’s a nice way to switch things up too.  If we have fresh fruit outside of apples and pears that need to be used up, we’ll use that, but our go-to add-ins are largely frozen fruit (strawberries, mango, blueberries, or mixed berries) or fresh spinach.

Homemade Fruit Sauce | Mama.Papa.Bubba.

When using almost any add-in, fresh or frozen, we add it to the pot of apples and pears and cook everything together.  The one exception?  Spinach.  (Or other greens – I think kale would probably work great too.)  With spinach, we always add it raw to the blender of cooked fruit and then blend.  I like doing it this way because I feel like once you cook spinach it has a taste, but you can blend it into almost anything when fresh and it doesn’t change the flavour at all.  (You can check out our hulk sauce recipe here – it’s a favourite of ours and includes spinach AND chia seeds!)

So a quick recap…

– wash and core apples and pears

– put them in a pot

– save spinach and kale, add any other fruits or veggies to the pot (berries, mango, even carrot!)

– add a little bit of water (1 tablespoon to 1/4 cup)

– cook covered on very low heat until fruit/veggies are fork soft

– allow cooked fruit/veggies to cool

– transfer the cooked fruit/veggies to a blender (including any liquid in the pot)

– add fresh spinach or kale if desired

– blend until completely smooth

– transfer into small jars for storage

These will keep in the fridge for about a week and for ages in the freezer.  To defrost them, I simply take them out of the freezer and let them defrost on their own either on the counter at room temp or in the refrigerator (depending on how much time I have).  You can also pop them into your kiddo’s lunch bag frozen and come lunchtime, the sauce will be thawed and ready to eat!  Bonus?  It serves as an ice pack in the meantime.

How to Make Homemade Fruit Sauce | Mama Papa Bubba

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Dairy-Free Strawberries and Cream Popsicles

7 / 1 / 187 / 8 / 18

Dairy Free Strawberries and Cream Popsicles | Mama Papa Bubba

Oh, how we love homemade popsicles in our house…  Summer weather strikes we begin the ongoing cycle of whipping them up in an attempt to stock up our freezer while devouring them on the daily.  And you know what?  I don’t mind one bit.  For the most part, they’re fairly nutritious and they’re so easy and fun to whip up with the munchkins.  

Some of our favourites from over the years?  

  • milk & cereal popsicles {strangely delicious}
  • chunky fruit popsicles {the prettiest popsicles you ever did see}
  • yogurt & granola popsicles {breakfast in popsicle form}
  • all-fruit watermelon popsicles {yum}
  • tropical fruit popsicles {these are incredible!}
  • healthy banana fudgesicles {sooo good}
  • polka-dotted blueberry lemonade popsicles {the absolute PERFECT popsicle for frozen blueberry lovers like me!}

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The perfect addition to our favourites list?  These dairy-free strawberries and cream popsicles made with fresh, locally grown strawberries.  Gosh, they’re good!  I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like Sam slurping back his first strawberries and cream popsicle before in my life…  I don’t even know how to describe it.  Maybe a mixture of pure bliss and complete desperation all at once? {Hahaha!} 

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Now I probably wouldn’t let Grae and Sam eat these popsicles for breakfast like I do other varieties {popsicles can totally be breakfast!} because I see them as more of a treat, they are absolutely delicious and we *will* be making them all summer long, even if we have to start using typical grocery store strawberries.  

For the full recipe, check out our Strawberries and Cream Popsicles post over on the CBC Parents website.

 

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Chocolate Cranberry Pumpkin Seed Bliss Balls

1 / 16 / 181 / 23 / 18

Chocolate Cranberrry Pumpkin Seed Bliss Balls | Mama Papa Bubba 2

Bliss balls are a staple in our house.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve made a batch a week for the last 4 years or so.  They’re easy to whip up, they’re usually quite nutrient dense, and they’re sweet and dessert-like at the same time. Plus they last well, they’re a hit at play dates, and they’re easy to pop in your purse or diaper bag for whenever a a little pick-me-up is needed.  

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Hulk Fruit Sauce

1 / 11 / 181 / 17 / 18

Hulk Fruit Sauce | Mama Papa Bubba

My goodness – this apple / pear / spinach / chia sauce has been on repeat like no other over the last few months…  So much so that it’s earned itself a nickname. HULK FRUIT SAUCE.  Hah!  I actually have no idea how that name came to be, but the Hulk is green, so…?

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A 100 Day Snack

2 / 23 / 172 / 27 / 17

100 Day Snack | Mama Papa Bubba

Ahhh… 100 Day.  Such a big deal when you’re 6 and have been looking forward to it all year long.  I used to love celebrating 100 Day as a teacher, so I can only imagine how excited Miss G is to be celebrating her 100th day of Grade One today.  I’m not sure how they’ll be celebrating at school, but you can bet I sent her off with a little mama-made 100 Day Snack in her backpack.  Grae loves snack mixes {especially when they involve chocolate!}, so these always go over really well. Last year she came home from school, raved about how great her 100 Day snack was, and requested we make another batch as an afternoon snack, so I figured why not?  My Kindergarten kiddos used to love creating their own custom 100 Day snacks and I knew Miss G would too.

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Chunky Monkey Frozen Yogurt Bites

1 / 5 / 171 / 6 / 17

Chunky Monkey Frozen Yogurt Bites | Mama Papa Bubba

My Miss G…  My goodness, she’s growing up.  At the moment, she wants nothing more than to be a teenager.  16 is the magical age she talks about most and she just can’t wait to get there {ugh},.  Of course this also means she wants to do everything very teenagerish too…  She wants to read grown up books, wear grown up clothes, talk in a grown up way, and basically do everything on her own – including cooking.  Her absolute favourite is ‘invent cooking’, which means pulling random ingredients out of the fridge and pantry to mix up mystery concoctions {and admittedly takes some letting go on my part}, but she’s also beginning to have quite a repertoire of actual recipes she can make on her own too.  These chunky monkey frozen yogurt bites are easy peasey for her to make solo and they’re also a very favourite breakfast and snack.  And the best part?  We almost always have a jar of them in the freezer, which means that we always have something yummy and ready to eat when needed.

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Milk and Cereal Popsicles

3 / 19 / 166 / 11 / 19

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Most kids look forward to pancakes and waffles and other hot breakfasts on the weekend…  But mine?  She looks forward to Saturday morning milk and cereal {absurd little thing}.  Admittedly, I don’t care much for cereal myself, then add in the fact that almost every cereal on the shelf is absolutely loaded with sugar {even the plain / ‘healthy’ ones}, and it just doesn’t happen often in this house.  That being said, we do have a few options I feel good about and we used one to make milk and cereal popsicles today!  Perhaps the weirdest creation ever, but you think outside the box when you’ve got way too much milk nearing its due date.  

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Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Energy Balls

3 / 9 / 163 / 15 / 16

Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Energy Balls | Mama Papa Bubba

Mmm… Energy balls!  One of our very favourites and a go-to when in need of a quick treat for a play date or school lunches.  These little balls of goodness are packed full of nutrients and are a perfect sweet treat or little pick-me-up on a long afternoon {not that we’ve had any of those lately ☺}. 

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Chocolate Chia Pudding

9 / 10 / 159 / 10 / 15

Chocolate Chia Pudding | Mama Papa Bubba

I’m not sure what’s taken me so long to come up with this variation of chia pudding, but goodness gracious…  Am I ever glad I finally got here.  We’ve been chia pudding fans for a long time now and Grae still absolutely loves it, so make it chocolate flavoured and she’s in heaven.

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Chunky Fruit Popsicles

7 / 14 / 157 / 16 / 15

Chunky Fruit Popsicles | Mama Papa Bubba

Oh my goodness…  We’ve totally been on a popsicle making streak.  We can’t seem to help it.  It’s summer and summer requires a freezer stocked with delicious frozen treats… Right??  Currently, we’ve got polka dotted blueberry lemonade pops, chocolate avocado pudding fudgesicles, fresh fruit freeze pops, and these beautiful chunky fruit popsicles in our freezer and they’re all delicious! 

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Watermelon Dessert Pizza

6 / 15 / 157 / 16 / 15

Watermelon Dessert Pizza | Mama Papa Bubba

Oh my goodness… I’ve been wanting to make this for ages, but with seedless watermelon not generally available in Kuwait, I’ve had to practice using alll of my patience {until today}.  Lucky for me, seedless watermelon was the first thing I saw when I walked into our local grocery store here in Germany, so obviously, this watermelon dessert pizza was meant to be!  ☺  

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Chicken Soup With Rice {a book activity}

3 / 3 / 143 / 20 / 14

IMG 6433

If you ask Gracen what she wants for dinner, 95% of the time she’ll say, ‘pasta!’ or ‘tofu!’, or some combination of the two.  So this afternoon when I asked her what we should make for dinner, I was definitely not expecting, ‘Ummm… Chicken soup with rice – just like in the book!’

I must admit that I was especially pleased with this answer because I’ve been wanting to start doing activities based on our favourite books for what seems like forever now, but somehow I just haven’t made it happen yet.   To get started, we read through each poem in Chicken Soup With Rice and then talked about what we’d like our chicken soup with rice to be like.  G decided that it would have ‘some chicken and some rice – OF COURSE – and some veggies because they have lots of good vitamins’.  With that, off to the fridge we went.

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She scavenged through the crisper and decided that we’d use these vegetables for our soup, which was perfectly fine with me.

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I worked on chopping them up…

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While she worked on shredding some leftover chicken we had in the fridge from the night before.

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We slowly cooked up our big pot of soup throughout the afternoon, and when dinner arrived, served it with some fresh bread and a reading of Chicken Soup With Rice by Miss G.  ☺

 

 

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