WARNING! Zoku Quick Pop Maker

I never imagined a problem like this, so I'm sharing this warning...
The kids had knocked a freezer shelf down so I took all the goods off the shelf so I could put it back in place.  All of a sudden, my dog was flailing around and thumping one of these things

(the Zoku Popsicle Maker) on the ground.  Like the little boy in A Christmas Story who stuck his tongue to a frozen flagpole, my puppy stuck his tongue on the frozen Zoku Quick Pop Maker and could not get free.  Once I figured out what was going on, I held him in place and he quickly got his tongue free on his own.  It was a scary couple of seconds.  The Zoku is designed to freeze anything inside its' metal core very quickly.  It can freeze a Popsicle from liquid and warm to frozen hard in under 10 minutes.  It could freeze a puppy tongue pretty quickly, too.  Warm water would have released the dog if he had not gotten free on his own.

The moral of the story, keep the Zoku out of the reach of pets and probably small children while you are at it, especially anyone who might succumb to a triple dog dare.

Updates--Frozen fish and the Fabulous $6 Wok Grate

I've updated a few past posts with new information.

We've added a new photograph of the iron wok grate showing the grate in action in our post on that topic.

Also, check out our entry on Trader Joe's frozen fish for some more information about the freezing process and a few more varieties we've tested.

5 Quick Low Calorie Meals from the Freezer

Anyone who has tried the Flex Plan on Weight Watchers knows the panic that happens at the end of a day or a week when all of the points seem to have been gobbled up and there is still a dinner to be had. Of course these are usually the days when one has no time to cook up a zero point soup and there is not a vegetable to be found in the house.

I've found a few great stand bys to keep in my freezer for when I want a quick low point meal. Have something like this on hand and your diet won't go out the window when time is tight and points are low.

Kroger Meals Made Simple - Shrimp Stir-Fry
3 Servings per package
140 Calories
.5 g Fat
3 g Fiber
2 Points

Dr. Preger's Veggie Burgers
1 Burger
110 Calories
4.5g Fat
5g Fiber
2 Points

Lean Cuisine
Roasted Turkey and Vegetables
1 meal
150 Calories
5g Fat
3g Fiber
3 Points

Trader Joe's Asian Style Chicken Stir Fry
8oz. Serving
190 Calories
1g Fat
4g Fiber
3 Points

Progresso Light Soups
OK, this is for the pantry, not the freezer, but it is a great option and there are 5flavors:
Italian-Style Vegetable
Vegetable&Noodle
Homestyle Vegetable & Rice
Savory Vegetable Barley
Southwestern Style Vegetable
1 Serving
60 Calories
4g Fiber
0 Points

Frozen Fish from Trader Joe's

I'm usually a bit dubious about the idea of frozen fish, but I noticed that one of our new Trader Joe's stores here out east had some interesting selections of mostly wild caught fish that looked good in the packages and was very reasonably priced, so I thought I'd sample a few--mahi mahi, swordfish, Dover sole, and coho salmon. Modern "individually quick frozen" (IQF) processes that use vacuum packaging and flash freezing have greatly improved upon the frozen fish of yesteryear. The fish seems to be glazed with ice, which is probably part of the secret. I defrosted the fish overnight in the refrigerator, and all the selections I tried smelled fresh and had good texture when I took them out of the package, and all were very neatly cut and filleted.

I've grilled the Trader Joe's wild Coho salmon in a very hot cast iron grill pan twice now, once with garlic butter, once with a teriyaki style marinade. This kind of salmon has a good flavor, but it tends to be a bit on the dry side, so it needs to be just barely cooked through--about two and a half minutes on a side--and a marinade to add to the moisture doesn't hurt. I've had plank roasted Scottish wild salmon that was like this in England. It's very easy to overcook, but if you get it right, it's perfect.

The Dover sole was the least freezable fish of those we tried. Even though the texture was good in general, the thin frozen fillets had evidently cracked in shipping and storage. It held together well enough to roll and bake with a crab and spinach stuffing, but it would have fallen apart, if I'd tried to broil it.

The swordfish was a success--maybe not as high a fat content as the best swordfish I've had, but that kind of swordfish is hard to find in general. 4 minutes on a side in the cast iron grill pan with garlic butter and a little lemon zest was perfect.

We're used to fresh caught local mahi-mahi when we're in Hawai'i, but even with that as a point of reference, Trader Joe's Peruvian wild caught mahi-mahi made a very respectable showing, grilled about three minutes on a side with garlic butter and lemon in the hot cast iron grill pan. It's not fresh from the shores of Moloka'i, but for what we can get in New York, it's excellent.

We're fortunate to live close enough to water to find fresh local fish in the markets and from the Greenmarkets around the city, but for fish that aren't local to our waters and the convenience of being able to have fish of good quality on hand in the freezer Trader Joe's gets a thumbs up.

Update (14 May 2009): A couple others we've tried since this post are the sockeye salmon, wild halibut steaks and the Alaskan wild cod. The halibut grilled very nicely. The cod had a good flavor but was maybe a bit chewy for a grilled fish; however, it seemed to have enough substance to hold up well braised or in a stew, so we might try it again that way. The sockeye salmon was first rate.