Happy #popsicleweek, friends!! Yay! This week always makes me feel so confident that I am doing the correct summer thing. I am such a bad summer-er, with my fear of mosquitos and dreams of snowstorms and hotdish season, but this week I will stay in the climate controlled indoors and engage in the colorful frozen treats on sticks that are one of summer’s true gems. I am so excited to peruse all of my friends’ recipes this week and also look back on pops of years past, like pistachio pudding pops, coconut rainbow pops, and bloody mary pops.

This year’s popsicle week contribution is inspired in part by my new-ish daily green juice routine, which has made me feel all kinds of good and bright (and most importantly less guilty about my other new-ish daily routine of macaroni and cheese for lunch), and in part by the Gin Motek at Bar Bolonat, which features gin, honey, and za’atar. I like this cocktail because it’s the opposite of those cloyingly sweet cocktails that are the reason I avoid cocktails most of the time. It’s light, fresh, balanced, and zinged up with earthy savory za’atar.

This is the the type of treat you want on a golden summer evening, after—or even alongside—a supper of fattoush and lemony smashed potatoes, or something like that.

They have a crisp Persian cucumber base that I’ve enhanced with just a few great things: za’atar sent from my friend Inbal in Tel Aviv, just enough honey from Eggbro’s bees to prevent this pop from tasting like a salad, and gin distilled from local Minnesota grown single vintage organic yellow corn. Prairie Organic Gin is not the gin you sipped at dive bars in college, and avoiding it for post-college years of your life because it reminded you of such (like I did) relies on about as much logic as avoiding summer tomatoes because you’ve only ever had tomatoes in the winter. Which is to say that this gin is a good smooth gin, one where you can taste the sage, juniper, and spices. It’s great and it comes in a pretty bottle, which I will never complain about. I am fairly new to Prairie Organic but once I started mentioning it to people around here, it quickly became clear that all of my friends with extremely good taste are fans. So I now count myself fan and love that these pops get a lot of their specialness from this Minnesota gin.

*Clinks two pops together* Cheers to #popsicleweek, friends!

Cucumber Cocktail Pops with Honey and Za’atar

Makes 8

1 pound persian cucumbers, coarsely chopped

1/4 c Prairie Organic Gin

1/4 c honey

juice and zest of 1 lemon

1 tsp za’atar, plus more for topping

Combine cucumbers, gin, honey, lemon, and za’atar in a high speed blender and blend until very smooth. Pour into 8 dixie cups or pop molds and sprinkle each with a small pinch of za’atar. (I prefer dixie cups since it makes them easier to unmold, you just rip them off, and also I can literally never find my popsicle mold.) Freeze for 20 minutes and then insert popsicle sticks. Freeze for 6 hours or until frozen solid. Rip off dixie cups and enjoy.

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-yeh!

Thank you so much to Prairie Organic Spirits for sponsoring this post! This recipe is only intended for those of legal drinking age (21+) and should not be shared or distributed to any underaged persons. Please enjoy responsibly!

Photos by Chantell and Brett Quernemoen

“dirty pop” has been stuck in my head all weekend, except all of the dirties have been replaced with “puddin” because it’s #popsicleweek and our lunch table* made pudding pops!!!

*the imaginary lunch table of stephanie, lily, alana, michelle, and me. and by lunch table i mean group text thread, which is kind of the same thing when you spend all of your time at home in matchy sweats.

we’re making pudding pops because pudding is a delicious, underrated food, and it’s kind of like grapes in that it’s good right out of the refrigerator but great right out of the freezer. the change color popsicles and those siamese popsicles were super cool but i’ve always always preferred creamy pudding pops, so i’m extra excited about this popsicle week. and if one side effect of our flooding the internet with pudding pop recipes is that bill cosby isn’t the first result when you google image search “pudding pop,” i’ll consider that a victory.

this recipe is based on these peanut butter graham cracker pudding pops from a few years back and inspired by my favorite jell-o pudding flavor growing up. does anyone else think it’s kind of quirky that no matter how basic the grocery store is, the jell-o mix section always has the very non-basic flavor of pistachio? it’s like chocolate, vanilla, pistachio, and butterscotch. the four main flavors in life. stoop was all about butterscotch. i liked green. and when i got my wisdom teeth out i was mad that i couldn’t have the nutty bits in the pistachio pudding so mum made me basil infused pudding. i was so drugged up but i remember that as being a great consolation pudding!

this pistachio pudding is special because it is made with pistachio ~butter~, something that is always left out of the nut butter aisle. (how is it that the nut butter aisle is less hip than the pudding aisle?) but it’s ok because that’s what food processors are for. you put the pistachios in, you turn it on, you check instagram for 5 or 10 minutes, and then magically all of the nuts have let their oils out and what was once a pile of nuts is now a creamy butter. it makes these pops so creamy that they don’t really want to let go of any popsicle molds, so my solution is to make them in little paper dixie cups that you rip off right before enjoying. chocolate dip is optional. sprinkles are not. and a good food processor is required. if you don’t have one you can try and hunt down pre-made pistachio butter or simply sub the pistachio butter for 1/2 cup of another nut butter or…tahini????

anywho, happy #popsicleweek everyone!!! thanks to billy for putting together yet another fantastic celebration of summer!! check out all of the participating popsicles here, and definitely check out the other pudding pops at our lunch table:

stephanie made carrot cake pudding pops with cream cheese pudding which sounded so good and made me want to put labneh in mine but then i ate all the labneh in the house.

lily made banana pudding pops which i am not going to eat because bananas are the devil but i want you to eat them if bananas are not your devil.

alana made matcha azuki pudding pops which she swore would turn out ugly but i knew that they would not be.

michelle made strawberry pudding pops that have yellow cake in them!!! gotta hide these from eggboy otherwise he will start foaming at the mouth.

pistachio butter pudding pops

makes 6 (3 ounce) pudding popsicles

ingredients

1 c (128g) roasted unsalted pistachios

1 tb cornstarch

1 1/2 c (340g) + 2 tb whole milk

3/4 c (150g) granulated sugar

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract

Zest of 1/2 a lemon

Sprinkles (i used these)

Optional: melted chocolate stirred with a bit coconut oil for dipping

clues

First, make the pistachio butter. In a food processor, blend the pistachios, scraping the sides occasionally, until very creamy and spreadable, about 5-10 minutes.

In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and 2 tablespoons of milk to make a slurry. Set it aside.

In a medium saucepan, whisk together the remaining milk, sugar, salt, vanilla, almond extract, and pistachio butter and heat over medium heat, whisking often. When it begins to steam, whisk in the cornstarch slurry and continue whisking for a few minutes until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon. Stir in the lemon zest and remove it from heat. Let cool for 10 to 15 minutes, whisking occasionally.

Spoon into 6 (3-ounce) paper cups. Top with sprinkles, place popsicle sticks into the centers and freeze until firm, about 5 hours or overnight.

Optional: once popsicles are frozen, melt about a cup of chocolate chips in a double boiler and stir in a tablespoon of coconut oil. Let it cool to room temp. rip the paper cups off of the popsicles and dip them in the chocolate. Serve or stick em right back in the freezer.

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-yeh!

p.s. shoutout to pudding skin singles.