My Culinary Adventures: Paletas (Popsicles)

As the season changed from rainy to hot and humid here in El Negrito, I started craving cold treats.  During training in Cantarranas, a number of people would sell paletas from their pulperia or straight out of the house.  There was a wide variety of flavors, such as coconut, peanut, banana, chocolate, chocolate covered in a hard chocolate shell, ronpopo (kind of like eggnog), and tutti frutti (my favorite, a mix of cut up fruits in fruit juice).  Usually at least one of us while in class would be eating one while making a delicious mess.  Unfortunately, nobody in my site sells paletas like that, but they're easy enough to make, and I had bought 5 small metal cups made especially for paletas, as well as the popsicle sticks.  The cold dessert they do sell here though is basically the same thing, except in a small plastic baggie.  They're called charramuscas in the south of Honduras, and topogigos (toe-po-he-os) in the North.  You bite the corner off the bag and suck out the contents as they melt.  The most common flavors of those here are nance (it's a small round yellow fruit that to me, tastes like rotten fruit), banana, milk, tamarind, and kool-aid.

Paletas
Ingredients
Frozen bananas
Skim milk

Frozen watermelon
Strawberry juice (I used the Livean brand no-calorie Strawberry-flavored powder in water)
Frozen orange pieces
Frozen papaya
Ice

1. In a blender, combine bananas and milk and blend until smooth.  Pour into paleta cups and insert popsicle sticks in center.
2. Rinse blender, combine ice, watermelon, strawberry juice, orange, and papaya and blend until smooth. Pour into paleta cups and insert popsicle sticks in center.