Tag Archives: recipe[dessert]

Fresh Mint Ice Cream

by Katie | Leave a comment

Mint is our ingredient of the season. In the kitchen we’ve made a few alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, salads, and meatballs. For the bathroom we made a refreshing foot scrub and some non-toxic deodorant.

You know the mint ice cream in your grocer’s freezer section? This is nothing like that. This ice cream gets all of its minty flavor from fresh mint, and with that comes a deep, green, earthy flavor from the plant. That description may sound crazy for ice cream, but when you eat fresh mint you taste so much more than the isolated mint flavor that’s added to commercial ice cream. By infusing the milk and cream with fresh mint, you’re adding those layers of complexity to this very simple dessert.

As I was sharing a cone with A. Max this afternoon, I was trying to think of another way to convey the flavor of this ice cream. At our house growing up, there was so much mint growing around the edge of the garden that it would get cut with the lawn mower. Have you ever experienced that? Mint getting cut with the green grass on a hot summer day? That’s this ice cream.

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Toasted Coconut Popsicles

by Sarah | Leave a comment

Are you ready for the perfect summer popsicle?  Toasted coconut paletas by Fany Gerson are so delicious that written word will never do them justice.  These sweet and nutty coconut popsicles are the perfect compliment to the refreshing avocado pops we featured a couple weeks ago.  Originally, I wanted to try my hand at making coconut ice cream this summer, but after whipping up these easy coconut pops, I’m not sure I want to go any further.  The paletas have a delicious creamy consistency so they’re actually more like ice cream than popsicles.  If you’re vegan, try these avocado pops, if you’re not, let’s get started 🙂

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Ingredients:

  • 1 cup shredded coconut
  • 1 can (140z) coconut milk
  • 3/4 cup half & half
  • 1 can (13.5oz) sweetened condensed milk
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Equipment:

  • Baking sheet
  • Blender
  • Popsicle molds

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Instructions:

  • Preheat the oven to 350°. Spread shredded coconut in a thin layer on a cookie sheet. Toast 10-12 minutes, stirring or shaking the pan often to ensure even browning and no burning. Remove from oven, and let cool to room temperature.
  • While the coconut is toasting, combine coconut milk, half & half, sweetened condensed milk, salt, and vanilla extract in a blender. Blend until smooth, add toasted coconut and pulse for 5 to 10 seconds.
  • Pour into molds (makes 10 pops) and freeze 6+ hours until firm.  We like to store our pops in little wax bags for easy access because when you’re hot there’s no time to mess around with a popsicle mold.

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liveseasoned_summer14_coconutpops3If you are looking for a way to beat the heat, this my friends, is the best way.  You won’t even work up a sweat because they’re so simple to make. Enjoy!

Watermelon Mint Salad

by Katie | Leave a comment

Mint is our ingredient of the season. In the kitchen we’ve made a few mojitos, some agua fresco, and a Tex-mex quinoa salad. For the (outdoor) shower we have a sand and salt body scrub.

Guys, today we’re throwing mint and watermelon together and calling it a salad. That’s it! It’s so amazingly simple, yet perfectly refreshing on a hot summer day. If you’re looking for a more complex recipe for watermelon salad, they’re out there, but I’m (nearly) a watermelon purist and those recipes never appealed to me. Though on one sweltering summer day in West Philly I threw mint and watermelon together, and now I’m hooked on this simple pairing!

I usually cut my watermelon in half and use a spoon to eat it straight from the rind. No joke. But, if I’m going to get fancy and call it a salad, then I have a super simple method for easily cutting the melon into cubes without making a huge mess. I promise, this is totally worth two cents.

1. Begin by cutting the whole watermelon into quarters. Follow the steps below for each quarter.

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2. With the rind on the cutting board, make equally spaced cuts down through the melon to the rind – you will end up with cuts on both open faces of the melon.

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3. On both open faces make equally spaced cuts that are perpendicular to your original lines.

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4. The center cubes of the melon should now fall out. Once you’ve removed all of the loose cubes, stick your knife in the melon near the rind and cut out the remaining pieces.

With your watermelon cut, coarsely chop your mint.

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Mix the two together and enjoy… but don’t eat it too fast, if you have some salad still in your fridge by Thursday, we’ll show you how to use your leftovers!

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Creamy Avocado Lime Popsicles {Vegan & Gluten Free}

by Sarah | Leave a comment

Summer is for swimming and reading and napping and popsicles, at least that’s what I always say.  Sometimes I find it hard to stay focused on my screen when the sun is shining outside.  I usually reward myself for working with little popsicle breaks.  Who needs a lunch break anyway? I’d rather have three popsicle and iced coffee breaks instead.

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A couple weeks ago, we shared some popsicle inspiration.  I mentioned that Paletas by Fany Gerson of La Newyorkina is an amazing recipe resource for popsicles and shaved ice.  Today’s recipe is straight from Paletas.  While we love sharing original recipes, sometimes the best ones are already out there and that’s totally the case with these creamy avocado lime popsicles.  The key is to use ripe avocados.  Remember we taught you how to pick and de-pit them?  Time to put those skills to use!

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Simple Strawberry & Greek Yogurt Popsicles

by Sarah | Leave a comment

The temps were high in North Carolina this weekend.  It felt a lot like the middle of July around here.  I was busy entertaining a few friends and we all decided to check out a local bikram yoga studio.  Yep, we thought the smartest way to beat the heat was to enter a 115° room for ninety minutes.  Our moment of salvation came at the end when the instructor gave us each a cold scented towel and a freeze pop.  Those little frozen treats left us wanting more.  We took our time thinking about it by the pool and then came up with this simple strawberry and greek yogurt popsicle recipe.  With only four ingredients, there is really no excuse not to try this naturally sweet fruit pop.

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It is best to use fresh and juicy strawberries for these pops.  Now is the perfect time to find a strawberry field near you!  There are dozens of you-pick-it strawberry fields near Chapel Hill and I think we found the prettiest one.  I enjoyed picking berries so much that I plan on picking some more this week!  You can’t beat paying $2.50 a pound for the ripest strawberries around.  If you’re looking for a fun activity this month, find a field near you!
Katie here with a few berry-washing tips:
  • It’s better to do a quick dunk in water or just run them through the faucet stream rather than to let your berries soak. If they’re in the water too long, they can absorb some of that H2O and their sweet flavor will get diluted.
  • Do you notice how your berries seem to mold much faster than other produce? Washing them is a great first attack to stop the mold, but even better is adding just a little bit of vinegar to your washing water. The vinegar will kill the model spores and, believe us, it will evaporate and won’t leave a funny taste on your berries. 
  • Finally, no matter your washing method, be sure to thoroughly dry your berries so that they don’t turn to mush in the fridge. Calder likes to put a folded paper towel in the bottom of a berry colander and just store the berries in there. The towel absorbs excess water and it evaporates fairly quickly in cold & dry fridge.

Ok, back to Sarah and the lovely pop ladies ~

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Equipment:

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Ingredients:

  • 2 cups fresh strawberries
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 cup greek yogurt
  • Juice of one lime

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Instructions:

  • Cut the tops off of two cups of strawberries.
  • Mash the berries for about a minute.
  • Add the sugar and stir.
  • Let the mixture sit for about twenty minutes.
  • Add the strawberries, greek yogurt, and lime juice to the blender.
  • Blend for thirty seconds to a minute.
  • Pour into the popsicle molds and freeze. Easy peasy, lime squeezey.

These pops are perfectly creamy and sweet.  They are sure to please a crowd of kids or for that matter, a group of gal friends.

Carrot Cake

by Katie | Leave a comment

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Last week I experimented with making a cake for Alex’s upcoming first birthday. If you caught this post, you know we’re planning a striped affair for the little guy. I was trying to come up with an idea for the cake when a neighbor, whose son’s birthday is on Easter this year, told me that she’s doing something like this. You bake a cake in two circular pans, one becomes the bunny’s face, the other is cut in such a way that you make two ears and a bow tie. With a striped bow tie, the bunny would fit our theme!

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