Summer on a Stick

Nothing says summer more to me than watermelon. Sitting on the beach eating watermelon after a long day of swimming and building sand castles... Aaahhh! Watermelon also lends itself nicely to freezing into popsicles - either in chunks (just poke a stick in and freeze), or blended to mix with other flavours. In this instructable I'll describe the basic method for blended fruit popsicles then introduce a few recipes to make your summer delicious and refreshing!

• Watermelon
• Mint
• Raspberries
• Kiwifruit
• Cucumber
• Popsicle making molds
• Clean popsicle sticks

Making popsicles from fruit is easy, healthy and refreshing. In six easy steps you can be sitting in the sun eating your own delicious guilt free treat

• Start by peeling and chopping your watermelon.

• Blend it with a leaf or two of mint.

• Pour it into your molds.

• Insert a popsicle stick. To hold the popsicle stick in place I cut a piece of heavy paper and made a slot in the middle of it to hold the stick in place.

• Freeze for at least 5 hours, or until the stick is firm in the fruit.

• Soak the molds in water for a minute or so to make extracting your delicious treat easy.

Store the popsicles in a plastic container, separated with wax paper.

I LOVE cucumber and watermelon together. Add a bit of mint and a squeeze of lime and you are on your way to fabulous deliciousness. I use two methods - appearances, and taste :)

For Appearances:

It is easy to make gorgeous looking popsicles. Try peeling the cucumber, blending it with some mint and filling about a 5th of the mold with this mix. Add the blended watermelon to the top after the cucumber has frozen. I used a piece of card to hold the stick in place while the cucumber froze. The two popsicles above are peeled (left) and unpeeled cucumber

For Taste

Blend watermelon, mint, cucmber and a squeeze of lime together and freeze. Voila! Summer on a stick! This method provides all over tastiness, but can go a funny brown colour - especially if you don't peel the cucumber first. IF you don't care about appearances, then I think this is the way to go!

Blended kiwifruit is fabulous - vivid green with black dots! Again you can use the two methods described above - freeze some kiwifruit in the tip and add melon after, or just mix the lot up.

Blended watermelon is a milky pink colour. If you want your frozen treats to be a vivid red, with a little extra bite I recommend adding some raspberries - frozen will do. They add a beautiful zing to the flavour, and boost the red colouring.

Frozen fruit make a delicious, nutritious, dairy/gluten free treat for all the family - try your own mixes today!