Today, with Sam still recovering from his latest bout of croup and Miss G home from school to catch up on some rest she can hopefully avoid getting sick, I decided it was time to make our first batch of popsicles of the year. I wanted them to be super healthy, full of vitamins, but still delicious, and so these fruity GREEN popsicles came about!
Now there’s no hiding this – all these fruity green popsicles really are is a green smoothie in frozen form {though if your kids are like my kids, it won’t matter one bit because anything in popsicle form is exciting and loved}. Truthfully, you don’t need a recipe at all because you really just can’t go wrong here… Just whip up a regular green smoothie, pour it into some popsicle moulds, and freeze! If the smoothie tastes good, the popsicles should too!
That being said, I know that there are lots of people who really like having a recipe to guide them, so if that’s you, here’s exactly what we included in our fruity green popsicles… Frozen mango, clementines, lacinato kale, pineapple juice, coconut water {which is optional}, hemp hearts, and chia seeds. Super healthful, right?
The best part? The kids did almost everything on their own! First up, they washed the kale and removed the cores.
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Then they put the kale and fruit into our Vitamix…
And added our juice and coconut water.
Looks delish, doesn’t it?
Then Sam did the honours and blended everything up.
Now I will say that if you don’t have a high-powered blender, you may want to skip the chia seeds and hemp hearts – unless your kiddos don’t mind a little texture.
Our Vitamix {which was worth every penny of its purchase price} blends them up like nothing, so add them to your heart’s delight if you have a similar blender.
Next up, we poured the fruity green mixture into our popsicle moulds. We have quite the random assortment and used all shapes and sizes and got 17 popsicles out of this recipe.
Here they are when done. They look good, right??
Here’s the recipe…
Fruity Green Popsicles
- 2 cups of mango, fresh or frozen
- 2 clementines (or other small oranges)
- 5 lacinato kale leaves, washed with the cores removed
- 1 tablespoon of chia seeds
- 1 tablespoon of hemp hearts
- 1 cup of pure pineapple juice*
- 1 cup of coconut water*
* for sweeter popsicles, omit the coconut water and use 2 cups of pure pineapple juice
Add everything to a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into popsicle moulds and freeze for at least 5 hours or overnight.
Enjoy!
We’ve been making super simple {and healthy} strawberry creamsicles 
I must admit that though I’ve known about the awesome sweetening power of dates for a long time now, I’ve been a little hesitant to jump onboard… But, I’m so glad I did! Using them in our cookie dough boys and our wholewheat strawberry shortcake recently has made me realize that they really aren’t all that intimidating. Simply soak, puree, and use like honey. Easy enough, right? Plus they allow these popsicles to be perfectly sweet even though they’re made with plain yogurt.
Knowing Grae’s love of popsicles, my mom sent her home from the Okanagan with a couple of new popsicle mould sets the other day. While I knew she’d be excited, what I wasn’t expecting was for two new popsicle moulds to keep her happily playing in her rear-facing car seat for at least 1/2 of our 7 hour drive home. She was so engaged with them that Brad actually said, “Well I know what we need to bring on the plane to Kuwait.” (If you’re travelling through Germany in August and see a woman with popsicle mould parts clumsily falling out of her purse, that’ll be me.)
When we got home and I started thinking about fun play opportunities for the week, I thought it would be fun to try to set up a popsicle-themed pretend play station. Of course, the first thing that came to mind was making the pretend pops out of ice, but I wanted something a little different. Enter gelatine. With a fun texture that can be jiggled, squished, and crumbled, I knew it would be a hit. 
This morning while we were preparing breakfast together, Miss G immediately noticed the rainbow coloured popsicles in the fridge and asked if they were for playing with. Let me tell you, this girl doesn’t miss a thing. She patiently waited until after our morning outing, lunchtime, and her nap, and I had this little set up ready ready for her when she woke up.
She was delighted to see it and immediately asked, “Are these just for playing, Mama? Or are they for eating?” With the fact that they were for playing with cleared up, she began naming the flavours – my favourite of which was tomato soup (the red one). Then she began doling out the treats in bowls with spoons, as she often likes her popsicles.
Next up, all of the popsicles went back into their moulds and got put into her pretend freezer. Then she took them out, one by one (with the help of a spoon and some serious shaking) as though she were filling customer orders.
For the customers who preferred to eat their frozen treats from a bowl rather than a stick, she happily crumbled the popsicles up. As you do.
There was lots of play with the popsicles in their smushed up state…
Then she moved onto making rainbow pops. Because I mean, who wants only one flavour when you can have several, right?
And then there was soup. Oh, was there ever. Soup stirred so enthusiastically that bits flew out of the bowl and landed in various spots around our living room. 
I’d say pretend popsicles were a hit, wouldn’t you? A colourful, messy, joyful hit.
With 1/2 a crate of mango in the fridge and our supply of 
Here’s our lineup of ingredients… Pineapple chunks (we used frozen because it’s what we had on hand, but fresh would be even better), mango chunks, a lime, one ripe banana, coconut milk, and Grae’s addition – unsweetened shredded coconut.
We began by juicing our lime and threw both the juice and the pulp into our food processor…
Along with everything else, except the shredded coconut.
Then we blended everything up until completely smooth while this little monkey gave our food processor some love.
Next, we added the shredded coconut and gave the mixture just a couple of pulses to mix it in. At this point, we had a little taste test and decided to add in a teaspoon of good honey because our mango was very tart (totally optional, of course).
Now while it does mean dirtying another dish, I always like to pour our popsicle mixture into a large measuring cup before filling the moulds. It’s so much easier and quicker than clumsy me attempting to pour straight from the food processor. Of course, if you use a blender, this won’t be an issue.
After I fill the moulds, Miss G’s job is to place a ‘stick’ in each one. When she was done, she desperately wanted a popsicle to eat (particularly, “the green and blue one on the riiiiiight”) .
Luckily, the disappointment that came with me telling her they’d need to sit in the freezer for several hours first was kicked to the curb with the offer of drinking up the leftover mixture, smoothie style.
Healthy Tropical Fruit Popsicles
The other night, Brad went out for Saturday night movie treats after G was in bed. I requested a fudgesicle, and he came home with a box of 18. Oy. Several fudgesicles into the box, I decided we’d better come up with a healthier version, stat.
Here’s our line up of ingredients… Frozen banana chunks, cocoa powder, pure maple syrup, and pure vanilla. Plus a popsicle mould of course.
To get started, we basically turned out frozen bananas into 
Next, we added some cocoa, a little bit of pure maple syrup, and a little bit of pure vanilla, and blended everything up again to create thick, chocolatey soft serve.
And that’s it. We simply scooped the soft serve into our popsicle moulds and popped them in the freezer overnight. 
This was the end result. Thick chocolatey banana pops that are bound to satisfy a sweet tooth or chocolate craving.
What does Miss G think? Well, after finishing her first one, she turned to see mine still almost whole, and said, “Mine’s a little bit almost all gone, Mama, so I want to trade wif you.” as if she was doing me a favour – hah! Thanks for thinking of your mama, Miss G.
A couple of weekends ago, at our local farmer’s market, we came across a Abbotsford-based farmer selling my favourite fruit… kiwi. While I had no idea that kiwi fruit was grown locally, I did know that kiwi is delicious and lasts a long time when properly kept, so I stocked up. When we got home, the kiwi went into the back of the crisper and I forgot about them for a while. Oops.
Upon rediscovering a stash of over a dozen kiwis, I decided we had to put {at least some of} them to good use asap. I ran a few ideas past my sous chef and she very confidently decided on popsicles. As you do. We gathered up a few simple ingredients – the kiwi, some plain yogurt, a little bit of honey, and some pure apple juice, and got started. 
While I’m sure they would have been yummy given the original line up of ingredients, at the last minute I decided to add in an avocado… Extra creaminess and extra nutrients equals a win-win, right?
My little helper threw everything into the food processor…
Stopping to sample her first ever taste of apple juice. When the measuring cup was four fifths empty she asked, “Dump it in now, Mama?” Hmmm… you think she enjoyed it?
After replacing our missing apple juice, we processed everything until smooth.
This was the result. A super smooth, super creamy mixture that Miss G wanted to drink then and there.
We transferred the mixture into our makeshift popsicle moulds, which are still some of my very favourites despite the fact that we now have several proper sets.
Grae happily placed the lids on top and inserted the wooden popsicle sticks…
And it was time for the freezer.
Several hours later, we had delicious, healthy popsicles Miss G couldn’t wait to get her little hands on.
First up – the banana almond yogurt pops! Gracen popped a couple of frozen bananas into the blender to get us started.
Then she added some all-natural almond butter.
And a generous amount of whole organic plain yogurt.
We decided to add in a little sprinkling roasted ground flax seed at the last minute too…
Then we blended it all up.
And poured it into our little containers (I’ve been searching for mini popsicle molds for a while now, but haven’t had any luck… This is my interim solution).
Miss G was pretty stoked at the fact that there was a little left over. Mmmmmm!
No need for a blender with these ones… Grae started us off by putting some yogurt into our bowl.
And then Gracen mixed it all up.
And we poured it into the remaining containers.
We put on the tops, popped in some wooden popsicle sticks, and put them in the freezer. Tomorrow we shall see how they taste!