Season 3, Bonus 3:
Summer Shorts: Make Your Own Fruit Soda (Small Plate)

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

Stephanie: (00:18)
On a given day, about 63 percent of kids and almost half of adults drink a sugar-sweetened beverage, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As a mom, these numbers are a bit alarming to me, but I also understand. There was a time in my 20s when I was drinking a few Coca-Colas a day, but much like a smoker, I just decided it had to stop, and I quit cold turkey. Today, my husband enjoys a diet soda if he goes out, but we don't stock soda at home, and our son knows that soda is bad for you. But today, in our third and final Summer Shorts episode, we're actually making a soda.

Conner: (01:03)
Healthy fruit sodas are so easy to make. All you need is fresh or frozen fruit and maybe some honey. It's simple and fun. There's even some science behind it. Turning a fruit into a fruit soda happens through a process called fermentation.

Stephanie: (01:30)
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 another Mommy Summer School kitchen activity, attempting a homemade healthy-ish soda.

Speaker 3: (01:57)
Support for this podcast comes from Active Voice Communications. Whether you're looking for content strategy or help writing articles, white papers, reports, blog posts, and more, Active Voice is here. Learn more at theactivevoice.com.

Stephanie: (02:13)
This activity is an inspiration from a magazine that we have the opportunity to get a sneak peek of. The publication, which is devoted to projects for curious kids, is due to launch later this year, and when it does, I'll be sure to share more. This was a completely new project for me. So, we started with my son reading the materials we needed.

Conner: (02:37)
A potato masher or muddler, a clean cotton dish towel, cloth napkin or any scrap or fabric that completely covers the pitcher or jar, a fine mesh strainer, a funnel, and jars with lids.

Stephanie: (03:01)
And the ingredients.

Conner: (03:03)
Two cups fruit, five to six cups filled with water, honey, you may not need any honey if you're using a very sweet fruit like pineapple, but if you're making a soda with a fruit such as passion fruit that's not sweet at all you might want to add honey. Start with less, you can always add more.

Stephanie: (03:35)
We chose strawberries, and we started with our fruit in a pitcher, but it was a struggle at first.

Conner: (03:42)
No, you're way stronger than me, I'm going to barely do nothing.

Stephanie: (03:49)
You know what? That's kind of hard. I wonder if I should put these in a bowl first. Let's try this. Yeah, smushy-smush.

Conner: (03:58)
There we go.

Stephanie: (03:58)
Yeah, that's looking better.

Stephanie: (04:01)
The more we mashed the berries, the more the juice came out.

Stephanie: (04:04)
Oh, you see the juice coming out?

Conner: (04:06)
Yeah, it looks like strawberry jam a little bit.

Stephanie: (04:08)
Yeah, it does. Yeah, it is starting to work a little better.

Conner: (04:13)
Oh, that looks just like strawberry jam.

Stephanie: (04:17)
Next we added six cups of water to our two cups of strawberries.

Conner: (04:21)
It's like clear. This is like red water, what is this?

Stephanie: (04:30)
Then we added half a cup of honey.

Conner: (04:33)
Oh my God, look, it just like, it's just stuck. Oh, there we go, it's pouring out. Oh my God, it's just on the side.

Stephanie: (04:47)
We watched the honey dissolve as we stirred.

Conner: (04:50)
Cover the pitcher with the cloth and set it on the countertop.

Stephanie: (04:55)
Okay, so read step two, because that's what we need to know about for tomorrow. We're going to set it on the countertop now.

Conner: (05:02)
Stir twice a day and observe. You're looking for tiny little bubbles to form. Sometimes you can only see them on the spoon after you stir, so look closely.

Stephanie: (05:16)
We actually made a mistake on ours. We waited a bit too long and we missed the bubbles, but it still tasted good. And the mistake was actually a pretty cool opportunity to learn. I love projects that are part science, part kitchen, and this one was perfect. I'll share a recipe link in the show notes on kiddosinthekitchen.com so you can try your own homemade fruit soda.

Stephanie: (05:42)
Mommy Summer School was a fun way to spend time with my son over his break from school. We did crafts and science, we read a lot, and we cooked and baked. We both loved this time together, and we've loved sharing a few of our kitchen projects with you. This wraps up our Mommy Summer School series. And whether you decide to develop your own popsicle recipe, or your own chicken marinade, or make your own fruit soda, I hope you've been inspired to try something new in the kitchen with your own kiddo. And now, I'm going to go cook up some new episodes for season three, which will kick off in September. Enjoy the rest of your summer.

Stephanie: (06:25)
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: (06:33)
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: (06:52)
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. We’re Kiddos Cook on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And I'll be back next month with another fresh episode. Until then, I encourage you to get your kiddos in kitchen.