Seriously these are so good. Rarely have I imagined making something and imagined how good it would be, and they turned out exactly how I wanted.
So perfectly refreshing, so perfect for eating on a warm summer evening
Strawberry Lemonade Popsicles
I didn’t use a recipe for this one, but it turned out much better than my last improvisation.
This is what I used:
~2 cups fresh strawberries/10 medium strawberries, tops cut off
Juice from 3 lemons
1/4 cup sugar
3 leaves of basil (I couldn’t taste these except in the last popsicle, so I must not have blended it quite thoroughly
This made 4 popsicles
You can of course, adjust the proportions to taste if you decide to make them.
Nutrition Qualities
1 serving of fruit in each popsicle
Strawberries: excellent source of vitamin C, and a pretty good source of fiber
With the lemon juice, you’ll get even more vitamin C – this is classically known for being good for immunity, but it also is a vital part of how your body literally holds itself together (it regulates collagen synthesis)
The American Heart Association recommends that adults limit added sugars to less than 6 (for women) to 9 (for men) teaspoons a day – if you make 4 popsicles from the amounts above, each popsicle will only have 3 teaspoons added sugar
Naturally dairy and gluten-free. Vegan depending on the sweetener you use.
My personal rating
5/5
A great way to use summer strawberries, a delicious serving of fruit, sooo refreshing, exactly what I was wishing for.
I watched this SORTEDfood video before making these popsicles, so I had been imagining delicious tart key lime flavor for several days when I made these.
I expected to like them because I love limes, but I wasn’t expecting them to taste so much like key lime pie!
The ingredients are lime, avocado, milk (whatever kind), sweetener, vanilla, salt, and graham crackers (for the crust). I used granola instead of graham crackers because I didn’t have any.
This recipe gets its creaminess from fatty avocado, which as established in previous posts, is a good source of unsaturated fat, which is known as heart healthy fat.
If you use regular dairy milk OR even any fortified nondairy milk, you’ll get a good serving of calcium and possibly some vitamin D (good for bone and teeth health)
Both avocado and milk are good sources of potassium – an important electrolyte
Can be dairy-free, gluten free and/or vegan depending on which milk and sweeteners you use (and which graham crackers you use for gluten-free)
My personal rating
5/5
Surprisingly similar to key lime pie, a great balance of tart and sweet, the avocado and milk combine to make them deliciously creamy, and they’re pretty easy to make. And you only need 1 lime!
This has been my favorite popsicle so far. Ok it’s only the second one, but it’s good. If you like fudgesicles or if you grew up eating homemade popsicles made from chocolate pudding, you’ll probably like this one:
Chocolate Avocado Pudding Popsicles
The recipe, from Chocolate Covered Katie, isn’t even a popsicle recipe. It’s just for a chocolate avocado mousse, which is also delicious in its non popsicle form. But as a popsicle? It’s even creamier and richer than I remember fudgesicles being.
The ingredients are avocado, cocoa powder, sweetener of choice, and milk of choice, vanilla, salt. Blend them up and put them in your popsicle molds and freeze them!
Nutrition Qualities
This recipe involves 2 avocados, and for me, it made about 4 and a half popsicles. That means each pop contains about 1/2 an avocado, which you can totally count as a serving of fruits/vegetables
Avocados are a good source of unsaturated fat, which is known as heart healthy fat. The fat is also what makes these popsicles so creamy and rich
From my estimates (depending on the size of the avocados and how many servings are made), each pop could provide around 20% of your daily fiber needs for the day
These are made with fresh or frozen raspberries, coconut milk, and chia seeds (and sweetener; I used maple syrup). You can visit Happy Kids Kitchen for the recipe.
These interesting-looking popsicles have a combination of creamy, mild sweetness from the coconut milk, bright tart-sweetness from the raspberry, and an different but not unpleasant texture from the chia seeds.
Nutrition qualities:
Some fruit towards your recommended 5-9 fruit and veggie servings/day (raspberries) that provides a decent amount of vitamin C
Fiber from: raspberries, chia seeds, and even a little from the coconut milk
ALA (the plant form of omega-3 fatty acids) from the chia seeds
A little bit of protein from the chia seeds
Because it’s homemade, you control how much added sugar (and the type) you would like to add
Creamy without dairy, in case you’re lactose or dairy intolerant
also gluten free and vegan if that’s your jam (haha jam)
My personal rating:
3.5/5
Packed with nutrients, pretty tasty, easy to make, would probably make them a little sweeter next time, raspberries and chia can get expensive so probably wouldn’t make them often.
(Also if you are looking for ways to get kids – even little kids – excited about cooking and food, spend some more time on Happy Kids Kitchen. Heather knows what she is talking about and has so many great ideas and tasty recipes! I will be probably trying several of her popsicle recipes which she has collected here)
Today we’re talking canned pumpkin puree (and then pumpkin pie).
The type of pumpkin that is usually used to make pumpkin pie and other pumpkin goodies. (Note that this is about plain canned pumpkin, not canned pie filling. There’s nothing wrong with canned pie filling, it’s just not the same nutritionally as it already has sugars and spices mixed in)
First of all, pumpkin is a vegetable.
No one would argue about butternut squash being a vegetable, right? Pumpkin is very close nutritionally to butternut squash. It goes in the red-orange vegetable group with carrots, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes. You can totally count pumpkin as part of your vegetable intake for the day. Now, the general amount of vegetables that the USDA recommends eating per day is 2 1/2 cups, so unless you’re sitting down to eat a big can of pumpkin, it won’t take care of all of your veggie intake, but it can certainly be part of it.
Pumpkin provides some impressive nutrition
The way canned pumpkin is processed means that some of the water has been taken out (via cooking) so its nutrients are concentrated!
1/2 cup of cooked pumpkin has:
3.5g of fiber (10% of the recommended daily amount for men and nearly 15% of the daily recommendation for women) – helps manage cholesterol and blood sugar, feeds good bacteria in our intestines, promotes regular bowel movements, helps us feel full
nearly 10% of the daily recommended amount of iron – vital for oxygenation of the blood
25% of the recommended amount of vitamin K – important for blood clotting
over 350% recommended daily amount of vitamin A (no, that is not a typo, it is super high in vitamin A) – acts as an antioxidant, important for skin and immune health, important for healthy vision
Most of us probably will not just sit down and eat 1/2 cup of plain canned pumpkin by itself. So how much of that good nutrition will you get in a slice of pumpkin pie? Well, of course it depends on the the recipe and the size of the slice.
Let’s take Libby’s recipe for example (that’s the recipe on the back of the Libby’s pumpkin can). And we’ll say that we cut the pie into 8 slices because that’s easy math. In each slice, there will be about 1/4 cup of canned pumpkin (half the amount we calculated before), so it will have:
1.8g fiber (about 5% of the recommended daily amount for men and 7% for women)
Nearly 5% of the daily recommended amount of iron
Over 10% of the daily recommended amount of vitamin K
and 190% of the daily recommended amount of vitamin A
Some of those amounts might seem small, but realistically, this is the way most people get nutrients from food. Small amounts from different foods that add up during the day. For comparison’s sake, one serving of Benefiber Original has 3 g of fiber, which is about 8% of the recommended daily value for men and 12% of the recommended daily value for women.
And it certainly has more vitamin A, iron, and fiber than many other desserts, like angel food cake or brownies.
Now of course, we must acknowledge that eating a slice of pumpkin pie (with ice cream or whipped cream perhaps too) also comes with more sugar, salt, and fats than just plain pumpkin, so if these are nutrients that you need to limit for a health condition, take those into account.
(and regardless, probably don’t make pumpkin pie the only way you eat vegetables)
However, a pumpkin pie having fats, sugar, and salt, doesn’t mean that you won’t get benefit from the fiber, iron, vitamin K, or massive amounts of vitamin A. You may also get extra calcium if the pie is made with evaporated milk, and extra fiber and/or B-vitamins if the crust is made with whole wheat flour
The bottom line: If you like pumpkin pie, enjoy it! (And know you’re getting a decent amount of fiber, iron, vitamin K, and a super amount of vitamin A!)
