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It’s a great time of year to make homemade popsicles. I was inspired by a recipe from Pops!: Icy Treats for Everyone by Krystina Castella that was in last week’s Denver Post:

Grape Pops

Makes eight 6-ounce pops.

Ingredients:

1. 1 1/2   cups seedless red grapes, halved
2. 4 1/2   cups white grape juice

Directions:

1. Divide the grape halves among the pop molds.
2. Pour in the grape juice and insert the sticks. Freeze for at least 6 hours.
3. Remove from the freezer; let stand at room temperature for 5 minutes before removing the pops from the molds.

Then I started researching popsicle molds online. Oh. My. Goodness. There are such cool ones out there like the Tovolo Green Shooting Star Pop Molds, the Tovolo Blue Rocket Pop Molds, and the Tovolo Yellow Groovy Pop Molds. They’re only $7.99 each (and eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25 at Amazon).

Healthy, refreshing, and fun - what else could you want? Have a blast with some homemade popsicles!

This week Miramax and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released Becoming Jane, a modern romantic comedy that looks at how Jane Austen’s real life love affair - and her desire for an independent life - inspired her novels.

I was delighted to receive a review copy from the folks at Click-Comm.com since I think Anne Hathaway from The Devil Wears Prada (Widescreen Edition) and The Princess Diaries (Special Edition) is a fantastic actress that teens and young women can relate to. It also stars James McAvoy, James Cromwell, Maggie Smith, and Julie Walters.

A synopsis:

When 20-year-old Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) meets up with the roguish Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy), sparks begin to fly. Initially repelled by his arrogance, the emerging writer slowly realizes that she has finally found a man who appreciates her intellect as well as her beauty. As her parents (Julie Walters and James Cromwell) arrange a wealthy, aristocratic husband for her, Jane begins a clandestine romance with Lefroy. The young man proposes marriage, but his wealthy guardian, who holds his purse strings, disapproves of Jane’s outspoken manner and ambition to be a writer, and threatens to cut Tom off. In a world where marriage determines a woman’s fate, will they risk everything, including family and friends, for the sake of romance?

Becoming Jane is the true story of how a young Miss Austen dared to hope to marry for love and to support herself through her writing, two very unusual acts in her day. Not only would this movie be a great introduction to Austen’s books, but it would make for a wonderful discussion with your teenage daughter about how a young women’s place in society has changed since Austen’s time.

Becoming Jane is the best kind of chick flick - smart and thought provoking. It’s also funny, romantic, and full of wonderful dialog, gorgeous costuming and handsome men. (James McAvoy - oh my!) All in all, a perfect video rental for an evening of mother-daughter bonding.

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If you’re stuck for last minute ideas, hit your local bookstore for some books, videos and CDs. Online retailers like Amazon can help get gifts quickly to out-of-state friends and relatives. (Thank goodness for overnight shipping.) And videos - easily available at your local supermarket or video store - are great holiday gifts for the whole family. You could even download some music at Amazon or iTunes and burn a CD or pre-load it on an MP3 player.

I have a lot of items to recommend, so I’m breaking it up into three posts. This one will cover the whole family, and Christmas and Hanukkah books. My next posts will cover great gift books for middle schoolers and teens. The final holiday gift post will be book recommendations for young children.

For the Whole Family

Books - The Poets’ Corner: The One-and-Only Poetry Book for the Whole Family - Compiled by John Lithgow, the wide variety of carefully selected poems in this book provides the perfect introduction to appeal to readers new to poetry, and for poetry lovers to experience beloved verses in a fresh, vivid way. The book comes with a bonus MP3 CD of revelatory poetry readings by John and the familiar voices of such notable performers such as Kathy Bates, Glenn Close, Gary Sinise, and Sam Waterston. You’ll enjoy reciting or listening to these poems with the entire family.

Cookbooks - Cooking is a great way to get the whole family together and involved in something fun. I’ve updated my right sidebar with some of the best family cookbooks out there. The Usborne Books items may be difficult to get through Amazon. Instead, order directly through the company’s website. Bon appetit!

Music - For The Kids Three is a MP3 music download available on Amazon.com. From Nettwerk Music Group it’s a unique collection of contemporary and original children’s songs performed by everyone from the Barenaked Ladies to Moby. Wow, kids music that won’t drive you crazy! A portion of the proceeds will benefit the VH1 Save the Music Foundation.

Video - One family-friendly movie to rent or buy is Arctic Tale. Rated G and set in the vast snow kingdom at the top of the world, Arctic Tale is a real life adventure from the people who brought you March Of The Penguins. Join narrator Queen Latifah as she follows two very different arctic creatures, Nanu, the polar bear cub and Seela, the walrus pup, through their struggles for survival.

For teens and adults there’s My So-Called Life - The Complete Series (with book). This short lived, realistic mid-nineties teen drama series starred Claire Danes. The show took a look at a 15-year-old girl and her trials and tribulations with being a teenager and dealing with friends, guys, parents and school.

Need some other movie ideas? Check out the following reviews on my blog, A Mama’s Rant:

• High School Musical 2
• Mr. Bean’s Holiday
• Meet the Robinsons
• The Jungle Book
• Disney Princess Enchanted Tales

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I’m so excited! Ratatouille is coming out on DVD next week (November 6). The nice people at Click Communications sent me a preview copy. It was wonderful timing as my mother, who’s French, was in town. She hadn’t seen it, so it was a perfect movie to share with her grandkids.

We loved watching Ratatouille again even though we had seen it in the theater when it was first released. We enjoyed the short features, too. The foodie in me loved “Fine Food and Film: A Conversation with Brad Bird and Thomas Keller,” a behind the scenes look at how master chef and restaurateur Thomas Keller brought his real life expertise to the table. And the kids loved the new animated short film “Your Friend the Rat,” starring Remy and Emile from Ratatouille

So, What’s Cooking?

For the occasion, I made dinner using a recipe from the movie’s children’s cookbook, What’s Cooking? A cookbook based on a movie? Yes, and a good one at that. It has very authentic but kid-friendly recipes for classic French dishes like crepes, croque monsieur (a favorite of my nephews in Switzerland), and quiche lorraine. There’s a few fun dishes in What’s Cooking? too, like Easy Faux Escargot (roll ups) and Pizza Rats (cut up English muffin pizzas that look like rats’ faces).

(If you would like some more Ratatouille-based recipes, click here to download a four-page PDF from Disney and Family Fun magazine at AtoZKidsStuff.com. The recipes are based on ones in What’s Cooking?)

And of course there was this recipe for Gusteau’s Ratatouille, which my mother and I enjoyed and tried to pursuade the kids to eat

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Elizabeth Kennedy at About.com’s Children’s Books is recommending the Simply in Season Children’s Cookbook as “one of the most visually appealing cookbooks [she has] ever seen.”

Simply in Season Children’s Cookbook is an imaginative, active way to invite kids of all ages - especially 6 to 12 year olds - to get in touch with real food, to see where it comes from, to take responsibility for preparing it, and to have fun in the process.

With summer farmer’s markets in full swing, this is a great time to use such a cookbook. Another great resource is the Internet, of course, and one great website for summertime recipes comes from the National Watermelon Promotion Board. They have some great kid friendly and healthy, seasonal recipes. Here’s a small sample.

Watermelon Banana Split
A healthy twist to an old favorite - serves four

Ingredients:

1. 2 bananas
2. 1 medium watermelon
3. 1 cup fresh blueberries
4. 1 cup diced fresh pineapple
5. 1 cup sliced fresh strawberries
6. 1/4 cup caramel fruit dip
7. 1/4 cup honey roasted almonds

Instructions:

Peel bananas and cut in half lengthwise then cut each piece in half. For each serving, lay 2 banana pieces against sides of shallow dish. Using an ice cream scooper, place three watermelon “scoops” in between each banana in each dish. Remove seeds if necessary. Top each watermelon “scoop” with a different fruit topping. Drizzle caramel fruit dip over all. Sprinkle with almonds.

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