Summertime Sadness and Coconut Chia Seed Popsicles {Paleo, Vegan}

This summer has gone way too fast, and I don’t like it one bit!  This was supposed to be the.most.epic.summer.of.adventure.ever… and it was!  Between April and June, I went to Atlanta, Nashville, Indianapolis and Savannah, and that doesn’t even include all the trips for work. In June, I celebrated my 30th birthday at least 30 times and went tubing down the Shenandoah, and July was a month packed-full with family visits, culminating in week at Silver Lake.  But I’m afraid I front-loaded it.  Such a rookie mistake. As my spin teacher always warns, “don’t burn all your candles too early!”  So now we’re entering August and I have very few trips to look forward to, and as someone who for years had to save all my travel for August, it’s a weird feeling!

Woe is me, right?  Instead of getting too down about it though, I’ve decided to focus on something I can control: my consumption of frozen desserts.  I will be making at least one new frozen dessert each week.  To show my commitment to the cause, I bought a new ice cream maker.  You should know that every few years, I impulsively purchase an ice cream maker, use it once, get frustrated, shove it in the closet and lose the pieces… but this time will be different!  This once doesn’t require two pounds of salt and a bag of ice just to make a batch of ice cream, so my hopes are high!

My ice cream maker hasn’t yet arrived, but in the meantime it was time to break in my popsicle mold (another impulse buy)!  I’ve been doing a little “vacation clean up” this week sticking to a (delicious!) paleo diet, so I decided to make these coconut chia seed popsicles that kept with that theme and didn’t require a grocery store run.  These are a ridiculously simple, nutritious treat!

Coconut Chia Seed Popsicles

Ingredients:

• 15 oz can of light coconut milk
• 1/4 cup chia seeds
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

How to: Combine coconut milk and chia seeds in a medium-sized bowl and let sit for 20 minutes.  Stir in maple syrup, shredded coconut and vanilla extract.  Using a small funnel or a measuring cup with a lip, pour the mixture into your popsicle mold and freeze for at least three hours.  Note: you can add chunks of any sort of fruit you’d like!  Mango, pineapple, peaches, raspberries…. they’d all be delicious!  If you do this, pour half the mixture in the mold, drop in the fruit chunks, and then pour the rest, making sure the liquid fills in around the fruit chunks.

*Run the popsicle mold under hot water for 10-15 seconds before serving so your pop will slide out!

Makes 6 popsicles: 150 calories, 8g fat, 17 carbs, 5g fiber, 2g protein

Johanna