Blackberry Ice Lollies

We love making popsicles /ice lollies. The kids get involved and it's a great way to get certain fruits into them that they might otherwise not try.

For a truly budget popsicle, try using the juice left over from tinned fruit. Or incorporating that in the mix! But if you are a good foragers, there's no reason to stop there. We get tons of brambles in the autumn and often have a few old bananas lying around that want using up!

Ingredients:

200g blackberries
banana
1 freshly pealed and chopped apple (or an orange, melon, whatever you have)

Method:

Place the food processor or a blender with a metal blade.

 Whizz.

Pour into molds and freeze overnight.

Layered Ice Lollies

We sometimes do it in 2 steps to get a layered effect!

Hot pink layer - was cranberry juice whizzed with raspberries and gooseberries
White layer - double cream beaten with mascarpone cheese and 100g icing sugar. Clearly not a budget choice but we had leftovers from Burns Night cranachan which needed using up! Any ice cream could be substituted.
Purple layer - see the above recipe with brambles

Three layers' origins

Holyrood House

Holyrood House is the original Renaissance safe house with an insurance package - the attached abbey where royal exiles could flee for sanctuary. The palace is beautiful and still a residence of the queen so you may not be able to view it particularly in late June or any other time if the royal family is in occupation.

History

Dating to the 1100's for the abbey, there have been many building projects over the years. The current abbey was destroyed during the Reformation by a mob.

Planning your visit

You should allow at least an hour and a half for Holyrood House. We enjoyed the audio tour.

There is parking nearby and the 35 bus goes quite close.

If you get your ticket stamped at the end, it turns into a year pass.

Holyrood House usually has a free day near or on St. Andrew's Day - on that day you cannot turn your ticket into a year pass.

Taking Kids

What could be more fun than going to see the queen's house?

We actually enjoyed the front courtyard most. There were the guard posts.

and the lion sculptures on random walls

The palace has a children's room. There are coloring sheets available.

Also laid out are old fashioned toys and tools.

There are costumes.

What really disgusts me is that the Holyrood House website claims the gardens are wonderful and well worth a visit - but when we visited there were signs everywhere saying to keep off the grass and every path except the main thoroughfare was roped off!

It is a gross lie to say it's a great place for kids to explore when there's nothing to explore! We were done doing the garden path circuit in 5 minutes.

Ramen Noodle Seasoning Packets Play Dough

Another cupboard blocker for us is the seasoning packets that come with Ramen noodles. We have bags of them. As they are free and hence cheaper than salt, I substitute them for the salt in a normal salt dough recipe. They make a saffron colored dough which smells super savory especially when cooked. See also my post on Baby Lotion play dough.

Recipe:

• 1/2 cup seasoning packets
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup water
• any glitter or food coloring you like (none included in dough in photo below)

Bake at a low temperature - 120 C or 200 F- for an hour or two till hard.