Frozen Fridays #2

One sad thing about summer is that you cannot enjoy your favorite winter beverages as much. Who wants hot coffee or hot chocolate if it is 100 degrees outside? Not me! This popsicle, however, offers a great alternative. The top half is caramel coffee and the bottom half is chocolate!

How I made it:

1.) Put 1 tablespoon of instant coffee into your blender. Add sugar and caramel creamer to your taste. Fill with water until you reach the 1 cup mark on your blender. Blend.

2.) Fill each popsicle slot half full.

3.) Freeze for 2 & 1/2 hours.

4.) Put 1 heaping tablespoon of hot chocolate mix into the blender. Then pour in milk until you reach the 1 cup mark. Blend, then fill the remaining halves of each popsicle slot.

5.) Freeze for 4 hours.

Enjoy this Starbucks-y treat!

Frozen Fridays #1

I stumbled across a book of popsicles in the library and couldn't resist bringing it home with me. Ever since I got it, I've been on a so far fruitless mission to find myself a popsicle mold (June is only a week away- I can't believe most of our stores aren't selling those things yet!). Lucky for me, this book not only gives really great ice pop recipes but it also gave me the solution to my problem: get creative.

One of the ideas it gave me was to use whatever ordinary object I could get my hands on, then put tin foil over the top to hold the popsicle sticks in place until the liquid froze up. My weapons of choice? An ice tray and toothpicks.

Just gave it a shot yesterday, and I am extremely pleased with the results:

My recipe went as such:

1.) Put frozen mangos, milk, and sugar (to your taste) into blender. Ingredients together should total 1 cup. Then blend until smooth.

2.) Fill each ice cube spot half full.

3.) Put tin foil over ice tray.

4.) Poke toothpicks into tin foil in each ice spot.

5.) Freeze for 2 hours.

6.) Put frozen strawberries, water, and sugar into blender. Ingredients together should total 1 cup. Blend until smooth.

7.) Freeze again. This time for 3 to 4 hours.

8.) Wiggle popsicles out of ice tray and enjoy!

This recipe made me two ice trays full of mini popsicles.

This recipe was my own invention, but to get more inspiration and ideas, go check out the book Irresistable Ice Pops, shown below.

 
UPDATE - 5/25/14: I just found a popsicle mold a couple days ago. After expressing my intent of making new popsicles every week this summer, a number of my facebook friends said they wanted to know what all I end up making. So, to quench the curiosity, every Friday this summer will be "Frozen Fridays", on which I will post up my popsicle of the week! I hope you can enjoy them (almost) as much as I do :)

Fifty Shades of Eavesdropping

Honestly, I don't eavesdrop on purpose. When you are in a library and people start chattering loud enough, and you are nearby, it just kind of happens.

There were four teenagers seated around a table in the back of the library; two boys and two girls. They all were giggling and making jokes as teenagers do, and making their best effort to have their fun without getting themselves booted from the premises or asked to tone it down, as they had in the past.

Then it happened: one of the girls dared the boys to go find that infamous novel, Fifty Shades of Grey.

I mentally shook my head, then continued about my business, pushing along my cart and putting away books (and truth be told, I checked my cart just in case it housed the tale they were after). I overheard a brief bit of bantering from the table behind me, then watched as the boys meandered off on their mission.

It was not long before I heard the boys' hushed voices from a row over,
"Found it yet?"
"Nope"

"You should ask her", one boy said, casting a quick glance in my direction.

"No way!", replied his cohort, "You ask her!"




"Not a chance."

And with that, the boys began searching the shelves once more. 


Interested and rather amused at their plight, I kept a discreet eye on the two. They did indeed manage to find the book themselves. I grinned to myself, partially because of their previous little argument and partially because I was glad that there are still some high school kids out there who can find something in a library without help, even if the book had to be Fifty Shades of Grey.


Then an idea struck me. I should bring them a present. I wide grin spread across my face as I marched purposefully down the aisle toward the cookbook section. Yes, the cookbook section. Good ol' 641.665, for any of you who may speak Dewey Decimal. We had in the last few months acquired a book entitled Fifty Shades of Chicken: a parody in a cookbook. I quickly snatched it from the shelf and took it back to the very back table.

"I happened to overhear you guys," I said, with a sheepish grin, "so, I had to bring you the parody."

In the end, I found them reading more of the cookbook parody than the original. Considering the content of the original, I'm totally okay with that ending. Little did I know, it wasn't the end. Half an hour later I noticed the same foursome standing outside the library using some black goo to dye the hair of one of the guys. Oh the joys of teenage adventures!

Book of The Week: 1,327 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off

All I can say about this book is that it is fun. So just go read it. And don't lose your socks.

 

Title: 1,327 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off

Authors:  John Lloyd, John Mitchinson, &  James Harkin

 Synopsis:

From the creators of the hugely popular BBC quiz show QI and the best-selling Book of General Ignorance: 1,227 mind-bending facts. Did you know?

• Cows moo in regional accents.
• The international dialing code for Russia is 007.
• The water in the mouth of a blue whale weighs more than its body.
• Pants are responsible for twice as many accidents as chain saws.
• Saddam Hussein's bunker was designed by the grandson of the woman who built Hitler's bunker.
• Heroin was originally sold as cough medicine.
1,227 Quite Interesting Facts to Blow Your Socks Off is a trove of the strangest, funniest, and most improbable tidbits of knowledge—all painstakingly researched and distilled to a brilliant and shocking clarity.