Favorite Frozen Treats and Confession

Soft Serve Fruit Co

To me, summer means the sweet local corn, gazpacho, ceviche and the perfect glass of rose'. I realize my list omitted many people’s cool, creamy, summery favorite ice cream. After our frozen yogurt fuss of last summer, we’re not going to mention you know who but there are a few frozen Foodtrainers’ favorites I thought you should know about. They even won this salty tooth over.

Soft Serve Fruit Co

Brittany, our fabulous summer nutrition nerd (aka intern) talked to Chloe Epstein, one of the founders of Soft Serve Fruit Co, to learn more. Chloe said “ I was a big frozen yogurt fan but once I started to think about getting pregnant, my priorities changed. I became more concerned with ingredients rather than just calories.” Speaking of ingredients, Soft Serve Fruit Co has only three: fruit, filtered water and cane sugar. It’s dairy free, vegan, gluten free, kosher and really delicious. With a Union Square location some of the fruits are organic and others local. My favorite flavor was banana with pear as the runner-up. Toppings range from fresh fruit to gluten free cookies and warm natural peanut butter.  The good news if you’re not in New York? Soft serve fruit company ships nation wide.

Cashewtopia

With my children away (I really think I have mentioned this in most posts since they left, as promised), my husband is a little cranky. Though he is somewhat cranky, unlike his wife, that his playmates kids aren’t around he is more annoyed over the lack of sweets in the house. As a good wife (and tired of his rummaging through the cabinets) I purchased Organic Nectar’s Cashewtopia in pistachio. I didn’t tell him this was dairy free, gluten free and made from cashews (for fear he’d get even more cranky).  Instead, I scooped some into a ramekin and drizzled Newtree’s dark chocolate sauce on top. My husband’s reaction, “what’s with the tiny bowl?” Nice.

Smooze

I’ve written about Smooze before but feel no frozen dessert post is complete without mentioning these adorable and low calorie treats. Smooze is made with coconut milk.  They come shelf-stable (good for travel treats) and can be frozen later. They are sort of like adult creamsicles with flavors such as passion fruit and mango.

Homemade Ideas

Earlier in the summer, we did a popsicle test kitchen. Those were a lot of fun. I’m also a huge fan of frozen organic red grapes, frozen banana slices and the banana soft serve recipes (link via Choosing Raw) circulating the blogosphere.

Full disclosure, I’m often satisfied with one spoonful of the real deal.  I may have enjoyed a taste of salted caramel ice cream at ABC Kitchen today (they sent Lisa and I out dessert, knowing full well we’re nutritionists).  As I said, I don’t really have a sweet tooth, ha.

What’s been your favorite frozen treat this summer? Your favorite summery food?  Would you choose rose’ over sorbet?

Popsicle Test Kitchen

photo by Ali Schalop (Samantha's sister), pretty, right?

In our June newsletter we discussed many of our favorite summer treats. While we mentioned some of our favorite store-bought brands, we’re huge fans of making your own popsicles. You can control the ingredients assuring they’re all pronounceable, organic and fresh. You can also get creative testing out flavor combinations.  If you haven’t made popsicles before it’s pretty simple you blend ingredients together and pour them into the molds. Leave ½ inch of space at the top as they’ll expand with freezing. The hard part is waiting the 4 hours it takes for them to set (truth be told one impatient 9 year old and I found out 3 hours is fine for the small molds). Our fantastic summer interns Sam and Brittany conducted a popsicle test kitchen last week.  Here are their results:

Brittany used the Tovolo Jewel Pop Molds available at Whole Foods Market and at Zabars in NYC.  We got the idea from Nourish and Flourish when she talked about these ring-pop like molds (fun). Samantha used the Tovolo Groovy Pop molds. Both are BPA free and easy to clean. We had them rate their creations on a scale of 1 to 4 “pops”.

Brittany:

Both recipes were easy and not very time consuming. However, I found the product a bit difficult to pour into because of the shape. Also, the molds were a bit small. I preferred the pina colada popsicles over the blueberry yogurt popsicles.

Pina Colada Pops 

Fresh  pineapple, a banana, ½ cup unsweetened coconut flakes.

The pina colada popsicles were delicious. The flavor was tropical and the banana gave it a smooth almost ice-cream texture.

 I would rate the pina colada a 3.5 out of 4. 

Blueberry Yogurt Pops

1 cup frozen blueberries, Siggi’s vanilla yogurt, agave nectar.   

 The blueberry yogurt popsicles were a bit tart. I did not love the vanilla flavoring. It needed more sweetening. 

All in all, I would rate the blueberry yogurt popsicle a 1-2.

Samantha:

I had one major hit and a couple of misses.

Avocado Coconut Pops

We had high hopes for these from the tiny morsels blog:

1 ripe avocado, 3/4 cup light coconut milk, 1 tablespoon agave nectar filtered water, as needed

 This sounded good but seemed to have too much coconut milk, 1 give it 1 pop.

Healthy Veggie Pops

This recipe was from nature moms blog:

Baby spinach blended with strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, 1-2 tablespoons of raw agave nectar, and fresh squeezed orange juice.

These were perfect! I give them 4 pops.

I made Sam’s Veggie pops and I cannot tell you the delight I was filled with when my boys asked for “Spinach Pops”. I also added some fresh mint because everything is better with mint. We had some testing at our house too with Blueberry Lemonade Ring Pops and Watermelon, Lime (zest) Groovy Pops. I can see making post-workout pops with a little protein and even happy hour (I vote sangria) pops as well. Sara, at nourish and flourish,  called herself a ring pop addict, I may become a frozen pop fiend before labor day.

What’s your favorite flavor pop? Have you made your own pops? Any flops? What can we do to improve this avocado dessert situation? I’m on a misson.

Since When is Dessert Everyday?

Not to sound creepy but I’ve been watching you. It’s late at night; you’re cleaning the kitchen or just arrived home from a dinner out. Perhaps the kids are asleep. It’s quiet. You feel a little tired but there’s something that needs to happen before you go to sleep.  Maybe it’s a piece of dark chocolate or a Skinny Cow. It isn’t much you say, maybe 100 calories. After all, what’s wrong with a little dessert?  I’ll let you draw your own conclusions shortly.

Last summer, back when it was warm, I caught a segment my close friend (and fellow nutritionist) Keri Glassman did on frozen desserts. She presented her top treats and the reasoning behind her selections.  At one point the anchor, Storm Field, looked at her and said “but we shouldn’t have these daily, right? Why all of a sudden are people having dessert everyday?” Not bad for a weatherman, Storm had a good point. Keri concurred during the segment and I nodded as I watched.

 A day doesn’t go by without a client asking me something to the effect of  “I need new ideas for after dinner snacks.”  And I come through full of ideas for healthy baked apples and microwavable chocolate “soufflés”.  Some clients chomp on frozen wild blueberries and others (like myself) love medjool dates. The unbelievably sad truth is that we don’t need any of these things daily, especially if weight loss is a goal.

I wouldn’t be a dietitian if I didn’t do a little calorie counting here and there (though I far prefer talking about juicer issues). Let’s take that 100 calorie after dinner snack (aka dessert). That seemingly tiny treat, nightly, adds up to 36,500 calories in a year. And we all know that the treat isn’t always tiny. Well that 36,500 divided by 3,500 calories in a pound is 10.43. Simply put that Skinny Cow may be keeping you from getting skinny. I learned today that skinny is a bad word (diet Pepsi is catching plenty of slack for their new skinny can versus what’s in the can); many people don’t want to be skinny. If you don’t have 10 pounds you want to lose, I’m not talking to you but for the other 99% of you reading this, at least you know what needs to go.

If you’re suddenly feeling panic stricken, don’t. I’m not making house calls (yet) and swooping in to confiscate the candy. I’m not saying you have to do away with the dark chocolate. I have a couple of options. The first, we’ll call Show Yourself a Skip. If you’re someone who has something every night of the week, commit to a skip night or 2.  For starters I would pre-plan the skip nights, for example you can start the week with skips every Monday and Tuesday.  This will remove the automatic nature of dessert eating and you’ll hopefully be able to ask yourself “do I need something or can I skip it” down the road.  For those of you who need more of an intervention, I suggest Dessert Detox. Try a week where you end your eating day with dinner. Check back with me and let me know how it goes.  And for the record, I’m not actually watching you.

Are you someone who has dessert daily? Do you think dessert has shifted from a sometimes event to an all-the-time thing? Can you see Showing Yourself a Skip or Dessert Detox in your future? I’ve ditched the dates, detox for me.