Season 3, Bonus 1:
Summer Shorts: The Popsicle Project (Small Plate)

Conner: (00:00)
Welcome to Kiddos in the Kitchen, a podcast hosted by my mom.

Stephanie: (00:17)
It's summertime and the kids are home from school. In our family, we decided to forgo full-day childcare. And instead, our son is doing a couple of half-day camps at the local rec, and we've enrolled him in a few activities throughout the summer. But most of his hours are spent here at home. And if I were to leave him to his own devices, well, he'd choose to spend hours on his devices; video games, and YouTube Kids, and video games while watching someone else play a video game on YouTube Kids. I wasn't going to allow this, clearly. So I pitched the idea of Mommy Summer School, and he ate it up.

Stephanie: (01:02)
Welcome to Kiddos in the Kitchen, a podcast about helping busy adults find the inspiration and information they need to teach the kids in their lives how to cook. I'm your host, Stephanie Conner. And in today's Small Plate bonus episode, I'm sharing one easy kitchen-based summer activity from our Mommy Summer School.

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Stephanie: (01:44)
Mommy Summer School focuses mostly on reading together, some journaling, art projects, and a little bit of science exploration.

Conner: (01:54)
My favorite part is the journaling, and probably listening to Harry Potter, for the reading.

Stephanie: (02:03)
Naturally, I've added some kitchen projects. One of our favorites was the Popsicle Project.

Conner: (02:11)
Yeah, I loved that. Basically, we used different kinds of smoothies. We made an orange one, a purple one and a pink one. The purple and the pink taste exactly the same. And then the orange tastes way different.

Stephanie: (02:32)
To start, you'll need popsicle molds. Then choose a variety of fruits, as well as fruit juices or milks. We had frozen berries, pineapple, mango, and bananas, as well as some fresh watermelon. We also had orange juice, cranberry juice, lemon and lime juice, and almond milk.

Stephanie: (02:53)
Next, take index cards cut in half, or small strips of paper. And on each one write down a single juice or fruit that you have available. Make two or three cards for each ingredient. Then show your kiddo the cards. Place the fruit options on one side of the table and the juice and milk options on the other side. Their task is to mix and match fruits and juices to come up with their own original popsicle recipes. You need at least one fruit and one juice for each popsicle recipe.

Stephanie: (03:28)
The number of combinations you make is entirely up to you. I have enough popsicle molds to make 18 popsicles. So we made three different recipes in our project. My son combined lots of fruits and several liquids in his popsicles. We worked together to fill the blender, then we tasted the concoction. If he liked it, the flavor was done and we put it into the molds. If he thought it was too sour, we talked about sweetening the combination with orange juice or pineapple, for example.

Stephanie: (04:01)
At the end of the day, even the weirdest-sounding combination was a winner. And this was an important lesson: Experimenting in the kitchen is fun, and you can do it without any real risk of screwing up. And you don't need a recipe to make something delicious, just think about the flavors you personally enjoy and combine them. Plus, there's the added benefit of having summer snacks for days. Happy experimenting.

Stephanie: (04:30)
Thanks for joining me for this Kiddos in the Kitchen Small Plate. I'm your host, Stephanie Conner, with a reminder from my son.

Conner: (04:39)
If you like my mom's podcast as much as I do, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Stephanie: (04:58)
That's right, Conner. You can also view the show notes, subscribe to our newsletter, and check out all of our other content at kiddosinthekitchen.com, or Kiddo's Cook on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And I encourage you to get your kiddos in the kitchen.