Frozen Treats

Summer is definitely in full swing around here! We are soaking up every moment of sunshine that we can get!!! I have been trying out all kinds of new frozen treats for the kids lately and thought I would round them all up into one post.

These are all super simple no-recipe recipes!! Just eyeball it and use what you have on hand. Easy stuff!!!!

First, we started off with making strawberry ice cream. This involved a tiny bit of planning ahead of time in order to have frozen fruit to blend. We chose bananas (for creaminess and sweetness) and strawberries.  I froze about 2 bananas and a big handful of strawberries for this version.

If you ever have leftover banana from making a smoothie, you can throw chunks of it into a storage container and keep it in the freezer for this purpose! I sometimes do this with random fruit if we have some that were not going to use up before we leave town for the weekend.

When you’re ready to make your ice cream, throw the frozen fruit into a food processor and let it run for a few minutes, occasionally scraping down the sides. I added a little coconut milk to thin it out just a bit and get it blending. Scoop into a bowl and add the toppings of your choice. I love that this was healthy enough to serve in the middle of the day!!!!

Next up, frozen slushies. Everyone was posting their pictures from free Slurpee day at 7-11. So I went on a mission looking for an alternative that didn’t have all of the sugar and food coloring. Behold…..frozen fruit slushies!!!

These are so incredibly easy. Pick a fruit and blend with ice. That’s it!  Serving it inside of the fruit is optional, but fun!  This one was Lemondrop melon, a squeeze of lemon to make it more lemony, and ice.

The kids were begging for them the next night, so I blended up half of a mini seedless watermelon, a few strawberries, and some ice.  Don’t think I wasn’t tempted to throw a splash of tequila into these and turn them into watermelon margaritas for the adults!!!!!

Next up, frozen yogurt tarts!  My kids have been taken out for frozen yogurt a few times this summer.  After reading this post by Food Babe breaking down all of chemicals and loads of sugar in commercial frozen yogurt, I decided to make my own healthy version for the kids.  I threw these together with odds and ends that I had on hand – they are totally flexible!!!!

In the mini food processor, I blended up a handful of nuts (pecans, because its what I had), a couple of dates, and a couple of spoonfuls of shredded unsweetened coconut. I think this could probably be made with just the nuts and a bit of coconut oil and a little drizzle of honey. I pulsed it a few times until it was coarsely crumbled and pressed it into the bottom of a muffin tin.

Mix some plain Greek yogurt with a little honey. Lots of options here too – blend fruit and yogurt together for a ton of different flavor combinations.  Then top with a little fruit and freeze for a couple of hours.

Take them out of the freezer for about 5 minutes and use a butter knife to loosen them from the pan.  My kids thought this was such a fun treat! I felt good knowing it was full of calcium, protein, probiotics, antioxidants, and healthy fats. Thats my kind of treat!

I hope you’ll try out one of these frozen treats!  Let me know if you come up with any good flavor combinations!