Chocolate Pudding Ice Pops

Summer has finally reached the Laurentians and everything is bursting with green. I feel like I went from lamenting the snow in late April to lamenting the length of my lawn in a day or 2. Ice pop season started early this year. With the first signs of heat my kids bee-lined for the freezer at our local depanneur (corner store). I have a few different ice pop molds that I love to use, but my kids rejected my healthier less sweet versions of ice pops last year, and I have since learned not to hold back on the sugar.

If I had swooped in with healthy homemade ice pops a little earlier in their lives before they had a chance to taste a store bought ice pop I may have been successful in winning them over, but now they know too much. So I have dusted of my ice pop moulds, and I have made the chocolate pudding pops I have been meaning to make for a year and a half. The recipe is simply a chocolate pudding recipe minus the egg yolks. The mass in the pops helps slow down the melting process, and gives little guys the time they need to eat them. Apparently dads like them to.

Embracing sugar doesn't have to mean adding tons of white sugar to every ice pop recipe. Concentrated white grape or apple juice are great sweeteners. Although sugar is sugar in the end, and an ice pop falls in the treat category.

Chocolate Pudding Ice Pops

• 125 ml /1/2 cup white sugar
• 45 ml / 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 50 ml / cornstarch
• pinch salt
• 625 ml / 2 1/2 cups whole milk

Add all ingredients but milk to a medium saucepan. Whisk to blend. In a steady stream whisk in the milk. Over medium heat, while whisking continuously, bring the pudding to a boil and then turn down heat to medium. Whisk until thickened (about 1 minute), and remove from heat. Let cool. With a spoon fill ice pop moulds. When the moulds are full gently bang the moulds on the counter to help remove air bubbles. Place ice pops in freezer for at least 6 hours or overnight. To remove an ice pop place the mould under very hot water for a few seconds and pull ice pop out by handle.

Other great ice pop recipes:
Cantaloupe and citrus pops (Oprah)
Yogurt berry ice pops (Canadian Living)
Orange Banana Smoothie pops (Canadian Family)

Ice cream recipes make great ice pops. Just replace any cream in the recipe with milk.

Ash-covered soft surface ripened goat cheese, mozzarella, spinach and bacon pizzas

Around here Friday night is pizza night. Not very original and not something I ever thought I would do, but I never knew small children could be so easily pleased by such a thing as pizza night. In my younger and more judgemental 20s I looked down on "events" designated for certain days without fail as uninspired and lacking in spontaneity. I have also never been an avid fan of pizza in the way many are, even as a child, but the kids are so gleeful on Fridays I do not have the heart to mix it up. Sometimes I make risotto for the grownups, but I am also celebrating the end of the week and am not very interested in cooking 2 meals. This past Friday I made a particularly good pizza. I was in a bit of a rush and decided to crack open a jar of strained tomatoes to use as the sauce base for the pizzas. I sprinkled the tomato sauce with crispy bits of bacon as compensation, but I was still a little worried the sauce would be too acidic. I should not have worried because the pizzas were delicious. Or as my husband stated: "This is the best pizza I have ever had!" Prepared tomato sauces, even organic, are usually very high in sugar and salt so to have the pizza turn out so well with such a simple tomato sauce base was a very nice discovery. Although the truly delicious addition to the pizzas was an ash covered soft surface ripened goat cheese.

Ash-covered soft surface ripened goat cheese,
mozzarella, spinach and bacon pizzas
Makes 4 individual (8 inch) pizzas

• Pizza Dough Recipe (I have used this Joy of cooking recipe for ever)

• 3/4 cup / 180 ml strained tomatoes
• 8 slices of bacon, chopped and cooked until crispy and golden
• 4 cups / 1 l lightly packed baby spinach leaves, blanched and excess liquid squeezed out
• Sufficient quantity mozzarella cheese, grated
• 2 medium tomatoes, sliced
  
• 100 g / 3 oz ash-covered soft surface ripened goat cheese (like the award winning Le Cendrillon), sliced in medallions
  

Make your dough according to the recipe in link above. Separate the dough in 4 and form into balls. Lightly oil 4 bowls and let each dough ball rise, covered with plastic wrap, until doubled in size.

Pre-heat the oven to 450F or 425F convect.

Form the pizzas on a parchment large lined baking tray leaving a few inches between each pizza. Spread the sauce on the pizza dough, then sprinkle with the bacon, separate and evenly distribute the spinach. Cover generously with mozzarella. Add the tomato slices and finish with the goat cheese. Cook in the lower rack of oven until mozzarella is melted and beginning to turn golden, and crust is cooked (about 10 minutes).

On fridays I often make plain cheese pizzas and serve vegetables seperatley with dip before hand. The kids eat a lot more vegetables that way and everybody is happy.