Indian Summer Paletas

By Marilyn Hunter

I love Indian summer in California. Just when everyone is getting ready for sweaters and football season, Californians are enjoying the remains of those warm summer days. These are heat wave days in L.A. with temperatures into the 100s. For those of us who don’t have a pool, we often turn to popsicles for relief. And keepin’ it real in L.A. means not just any popsicle, but a Mexican paleta.

If you’ve never visited a paletería, it’s time you did. Paletas are ice pops made from fresh fruit. They come in a wide variety of flavors from mango, pineapple and tamarind to arroz con leche and cucumber with chile y limón. I once read that if summer in L.A. had a flavor, it would be mango con chile.

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Strawberry Shortcake on a Stick

By Katie Barreira

Ripe summer berries always make me crave jammy, jewel-toned desserts like pies, cobblers and crisps. But it just seems cruel, for both cooks and eaters, to serve bubbling baked goods in this sizzling heat. The dilemma has inspired me to come up with frozen twists on some of my favorite oven-made treats.

This week, I had a hankering for late-season strawberry shortcake. So I took the traditional shortcake topping of sugar-sweetened strawberries, puréed it with rich, tangy Greek yogurt and poured it into popsicle molds. Then, to mimic the shortcake biscuits, I finely ground shortbread cookies for a crispy pop coating. The result was a hands-free and refreshing version of the original with all the intensity of flavor. These sticks totally hit the spot!

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Strawberries in a Jam

By Sandy Hu

In the summer, when strawberries are at their peak, I always buy a few extra pints to make fresh strawberry jam. This jam is so quick and easy, it shouldn’t take you more than 20 minutes from start to finish.

Because the berries aren’t cooked, the jam maintains an intense, fresh strawberry flavor. It’s perfect topping buttered bread or toast. But it’s also delicious mixed with yogurt, topping oatmeal or spooned on vanilla ice cream.

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Last-Minute Fourth of July Desserts

By Sandy Hu

Happy Fourth of July! If you’ve been too busy marinating the ribs or buying those steaks for the grill and haven’t had time to think about dessert, here are some red, white and blue instant answers for your celebration today.

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Make this Easy Summer Fruit Shortcake for Father’s Day

By Sandy Hu

Steve is the best breakfast maker. Flaky sky-high biscuits, tender muffins, Belgian waffles, popovers, Dutch babies – he’s a master of them all. Since there’s no way to top his skill, for Father’s Day, I tend to resort to the same celebratory breakfast: simple scones with a make-ahead dough that can be shaped and frozen, so all I have to do is pop them in the oven on his big day.

As Dave and I were planning a Father’s Day menu, I thought about changing it up this year and giving those scones a new identity, as shortcakes with summer fruit and whipped cream. I’ve made and shaped my dough this weekend and the discs are in the freezer. On Sunday, we just need to bake them off, split the scone/shortcakes and fill them with fruit and whipped cream. We’ll just bake enough for the four of us so we won’t be tempted to eat more dessert than we should, and we’ll have the remainder in reserve for another time when we come home with a bounty of fruit from the farmers’ market.

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