Category Archives: Recipes

Cantaloupe Soup – Day 20 of 30 Days of Healthy Homemade Summer Treats

30 Days of Healthy Homemade Summer Treats

Call it a soup, call it a smoothie, cantaloupe soup is good either way. You can go as simple as pureed cantaloupe, but there’s so much more you can do.

Ingredients

1 large, ripe cantaloupe (if the cantaloupe isn’t sweet, the soup won’t be either)
1 cup orange juice
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 tbsp lime juice (lemon is okay too)
dash cinnamon or ginger (check with the kids)
honey if additional sweetness is desired

Combine all ingredients in your blender and puree until smooth. Chill at least one hour before serving.

A banana also goes well in the mix, especially if you think the soup is too thin.

Cantaloupe Soup - Day 20 of 30 Days of Healthy Homemade Summer Treats

Fruit with Yogurt Dip – Day 19 of 30 Days of Healthy Homemade Summer Treats

30 Days of Healthy Homemade Summer Treats

Fruit and yogurt are wonderful, healthy snacks. Some sliced fruit with yogurt available as a dip is a great snack.

You can change plain yogurt up with a little honey and cinnamon mixed in, or choose a flavored yogurt if that’s what the kids prefer.

Slice the fruit in snack size pieces that are easy to dip. You can offer a single type of fruit or a mix to make things more interesting.

Fruit With Yogurt Dip - Day 10 of 30 Days of Healthy Homemade Summer Treats

Homemade Frozen Yogurt – Day 18 of 30 Days of Healthy Homemade Summer Treats

30 Days of Healthy Homemade Summer Treats

Kids love frozen yogurt. It’s really easy to make – take regular or Greek yogurt, add some sweetener (I prefer honey), and any fruit you want to add to it. You don’t have to add fruit of course, especially if you want to give the kids a topping bar to really make this exciting.

Regular yogurt should be strained before freezing – this will give you a better consistency. Take a cheesecloth, place it in a strainer. Put the yogurt in the cheesecloth and tie off the top. It takes a few hours for it to drain. Make sure the strainer is over a bowl or some other container to catch the liquids so you don’t have a mess. It doesn’t hurt to strain Greek yogurt too, but it’s not as necessary.

I suggest about 1-3 teaspoons of honey per cup of yogurt, but it’s really up to your tastebuds, and of course other sweeteners will require different amounts. Experiment. It’s fun.

Mix up your yogurt, sweetener and any fruits you’ve decided to add in your blender or food processor. Vitamix is my choice, but use what you have on hand.

Freeze the results for 15 minutes to an hour or two, depending on how firm you want your yogurt to be. Frozen yogurt isn’t usually all that firm, after all.

Set up a selection of bowls with toppings. Fruits and nuts are great for keeping things healthy, but it’s usually hard to resist tossing in sprinkles, small candies, chocolate sauce and so forth.

Frozen Yogurt - Day 18 of 30 Days of Healthy Homemade Summer Treats

Layered Popsicles – Day 17 of 30 Days of Healthy Homemade Summer Treats

30 Days of Healthy Homemade Summer Treats

Popsicles of any sort are fun. Layered popsicles, however, really get attention. They’re a little bit of extra work, depending on the ingredients, but lots of fun to serve.

The key here is making sure each layer is solid enough to support the next layer. That’s not entirely frozen, but not liquid either. Just how soon you can add a new layer depends on what you’re making your layered popsicles out of.

Pudding, for example, can be layered as soon as the pudding sets. That shouldn’t take long, and you won’t have to put the popsicle in the freezer between layers. Fruit juice, on the other hand, will need to be at least partially frozen. Don’t freeze it too hard if it’s at a level where the stick needs to go.

Use pudding, smoothies, yogurt, juice, whatever sounds good together.

Layered Popsicles - Day 17 of 30 Days of Healthy Homemade Summer Treats