Make Your Own Fudgesicles (and other frozen goodness)

Last month I walked to my local Kitchen Stuff Plus store and bought some awesome popsicle molds. The best way to use them is to just fill them with juice and freeze, right? Wrong. BORING! There are so many delicious things that you can put into these molds, including the following 2 recipes.

Strawberry Vanilla Yogurt Pops

454 g strawberries, hulled

1/4 cup icing sugar

2 tsp lemon juice

1 cup vanilla 2% yogurt*

Purée strawberries with icing sugar and lemon juice in a food processor, scraping down sides if needed. Alternate layers of strawberry purée and vanilla yogurt in freezer-pop molds until they reach the top. Freeze until firm, 4 to 6 hours.

*If you don't have vanilla yogurt, mix 1 cup of plain yogurt with 1 tsp vanilla and 1 tbsp sugar or honey.

Fudgesicles
This is a recipe that we always used to make at our house growing up. It was adapted from a chocolate pudding recipe in a Mennonite cookbook. Not sure who adapted it, (do Mennonites eat popsicles?) but this is what was penciled in the margin:


1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
3 tbsp cocoa
2 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla

Cook first 4 ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly. Be realistic. If you tend to wander away from the stove and can't trust yourself to stir constantly, reduce heat to medium-low. Cook until thickened (about 15 minutes). Stir in vanilla. Pour into molds. Let cool slightly before putting lids on and popping in the freezer.

Strawberry Pie-- Oh My!

My blog is back! After a bit of a hiatus, I’ve decided to get back into the swing of things. I couldn’t have picked a better time---its strawberry season here in Ontario AND June just happens to be Dairy month! (like I needed an excuse to eat more dairy!). In honour of these 2 momentous events, I have decided to dedicate my posts for the rest of the month to recipes that contain these 2 fabulous food groups.

I’ve been dreaming about this recipe for a few weeks now, but I’ll be honest---I HATE making pie crusts. I think I might just make this in a pie plate and forego the shell. It will still be fantastic. And I may or may not eat it by myself with a spoon…..

Scrumptious Strawberry Pie

Layer 1

1 baked pie shell (optional?!)

1/2 cup whipping cream

8 oz cream cheese

1/3 c sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Whip the cream until stiff. Beat cream cheese until smooth, add sugar, 2 tbsp whipped cream and vanilla. Fold in remaining whipped cream. Spread into pie shell and chill for 1-2 hrs

Layer 2

1 ½ boxes of strawberries

2 tbsp cornstarch

¾ c sugar

pinch of salt

1/3 c cold water

1 tbsp lemon juice

5-6 drops food colouring

Wash and hull strawberries. Pat dry. Crush enough to make 1 cup. Combine cornstarch, sugar and salt in pan. Blend in crushed berries and water, stirring constantly. Cook over medium heat until thickened and smooth. Cover, cook over low heat for 5 minutes. Add lemon juice and food colouring. Cool. Fold remaining berries into mixture and pour into pie.

Topping

Whip ¾ c whipping cream and fold in 1 tbsp icing sugar. Spread on pie. Bring to potluck to minimize eating entire pie alone.