Cantaloupe Popsicles

While everyone else in the country has been dealing with earthquakes and hurricanes, it's been downright HOT here in Southern California.  The kind of hot that makes me regret putting off fixing the air conditioning in my car.  Luckily, also the kind of hot that does a great job ripening the tomatoes in my backyard.  I've had a ton of them ripen in the past week.  Tomato salads, BLTs, and caprese salads...oh my...

But one cannot live on tomatoes alone (though I feel as if I've been trying).  The cure for too many tomatoes?  Well, actually, I don't know if there is a cure for that besides giving them all away to grateful friends and neighbors.   But finding the sweetest smelling cantaloupe in my produce box last week certainly helped.  I think my little one ate most of the first half of it all by himself.  Don't you just love watching them gobble up ripe fruit, the juices dribbling down their chins?  Ah, to be two again...The rest of the family helped him eat the remainder of the first half and we could have easily eaten the rest as well.  But I had my eye on it for another purpose- popsicles. 

Who doesn't love a popsicle?  It's downright un-American.  And they are so easy to make, the hard part is waiting for them to freeze before slurping them up on the lawn on a hot afternoon.  I managed to save what I needed for my popsicles and made them one morning late last week.  It was hard waiting long enough for them to freeze, but we were totally rewarded for our patience.  These popsicles are the best I've ever made, hands down.  I added some lime juice to the simple syrup I mixed into the cantaloupe puree and was hoping for a bit more flavor from it than I got, but the cantaloupe was so good on it's own that I didn't mind.  My 6 year old suggested that orange juice would have been a good addition, and I have to say that I quite agree.  Whatever juice you pick, you can go a bit heavier on it than the recipe calls for if you like.  Either way, you won't be disappointed with the results.

Cantaloupe Popsicles
From All Things Simple
Please, please, please use the best smelling and most perfectly ripe melon that you can for this recipe.  You won't regret it.  I got my popsicle molds in the dollar bin at Target, but you can really find them cheaply all over the place.  Mine are a bit on the small side, so I cut back on the recipe I used as my guide.  If yours are an average popsicle size, you may want to increase the amounts by half.

3 cups fresh cantaloupe, cubed (about half of a average sized melon)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 sup water
juice of 1 lime

In a small pot, mix together the water and sugar.  Cook over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.  Remove from the heat and let cool.  (Incidentally, I found that I can also do this step in the microwave using a Pyrex measuring cup)

In a blender or food processor, blend the cantaloupe until it is smooth.  Add the lime juice and cooled sugar syrup.  Blend just to mix the ingredients.  Fill the popsicle molds with the cantaloupe mixture, leaving a bit of room at the top for expansion.  If your mold has lids with the sticks, pop them on and freeze until solid (about 5 hours).  If you aren't using molds with lids, freeze until the popsicles are beginning to set (anywhere from 1-2 hours), then insert your sticks and continue freezing until solid.

**NOTE** I have made popsicles using this same basic recipe, but swapping the cantaloupe for watermelon and adding about a dozen mint leaves.  The result is a pretty, layered popsicle (the watermelon separates into a clear layer and a pink pulpy layer) with a refreshing hit of mint.  Quite a nice way to use up one of those big melons.