Another recent Summer Jar task was making popsicles. I got a popsicle mold years ago, before I had kids even, I think (maybe in an attempt to make a healthier dessert?). We don’t bring it out nearly often enough. First we made a simple syrup (heat equal parts sugar and water in a saucepan, boil, dissolve sugar…put a half-cup of it into the popsicles, save the rest for cocktails). We had two overripe nectarines, so we threw those into the blender with the simple syrup. Then we added the dregs of a bag of frozen tropical fruit (two pineapple chunks, a bit of kiwi, and maybe some mango). And finally some frozen blueberries, since we add frozen blueberries to pretty much everything. A whirl or two in the blender, and it looked…well, odd. But I didn’t say a word. I wasn’t going to be the one to cast a pall on the popsicling.
Here they are about to go into the freezer, and looking, frankly, like some kind of medical byproduct. But again, I was mum on the aesthetics.
And good thing! Because they were actually pretty amazing. They were more nectariney than anything else.
When I took the above photo, I was all concerned with making sure it looked like the children were enjoying the popsicles. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that they were dressed like crazy people.
By the time we got outside, they were all on their third popsicles, and Henry’s pirate bandanna had started to take on a life of its own.
My favorite thing in the photos are Eli’s clothes….oh, and the scrummy fruitsicles…and Zuzu’s chub and whalespout, and Henry’s expression in the last photo…