A Charlie Brown Cookbook: Peanuts Family Cookbook

Normally around this time, I would have watched my all-time favourite holiday special, "A Charlie Brown Christmas". But because Tim Cook decided only AppleTV+ subscribers deserve this present, I'm out of luck. Fortunately, I discovered a literary substitute to satisfy my fix for Charles Schultz's cry against the commercialization of Christmas. "Peanuts Family Cookbook" is similar to any other themed cookbook, with recipes that have a link, however tenuous, to a character from a popular movie, TV show, or book. While the recipes are easy to make with or without parental supervision, the real highlight of the cookbook is the artwork and the reprints of some of the old comic strips, making it fun to flip through even if you don't make anything from it. It seems only fitting that Franklin on Food celebrates this cookbook with a recipe from the character who shares a name with this blog.

Ingredients: Franklin's Frozen Fruit Crush

200 g sugar
240 mL water
13 plums, 12 halved and pitted

1. Mix the water and sugar in a small saucepot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and let simmer until the sugar has completely dissolved. Set the mixture aside to cool.
2. Pour the sugar mixture into a blender and add the 12 plums. Blend everything until it's smooth.
3. Empty the contents of the blender into a standard baking dish, cover it with plastic wrap, and put it in the freezer for about an hour. Remove the baking dish from the freezer, uncover, and rake the mixture into flakes with a fork.
4. Cover with plastic wrap again and return the baking dish to the freezer. Repeat the raking of the mixture every thirty minutes for three hours until the mixture looks like shaved ice.
5. Scoop into glasses or bowls, garnish with slices from the remaining plum, and serve immediately.