Oh summer. Now that I have a school aged kid (OMG, I can’t believe I have a school aged kid) summer is fun again. It hasn’t been
fun since I graduated from college and had to actually work over the summer. But, watching my almost 5 year old enjoy all that summer has to offer is better than I ever expected. We have lots of fun stuff planned. I can’t wait to see her run through the sprinkler, catch lightning bugs, and ride her bike endlessly up and down the sidewalk on our street. I want her to be a kid as long as possible!!
Last week I posted a smoothie recipe. It was so tasty I decided to try my hand at turning it into a fun summer treat for the neighborhood kids. Who doesn’t love popsicles?? These turned out so great. The kids even got to help by picking the mint and dropping in the fresh berries. This was a last minute idea, so I used what I had around the house. I grabbed the dixie cups that we use for teeth brushing, some craft sticks from the craft cabinet and went to work on the popsicles. They turned out great. The perfect combination of summer messiness and real ingredients. The only added sweetner in these is the honey.
I decided to cheat by creating a little stick stand with a cantaloup ball. This could also be done with a strawberry, watermelon, etc. Anything that can have a flat side. This was really helpful. In the past I’ve had trouble getting my sticks to stand up straight. Plus, you get a fun surprise once you start eating it.
Do you have any fun summer plans?
Local Ingredient: Strawberries, honey and mint
Ingredients
1 1/2 cup fresh organic strawberries, hulled and frozen
1 banana
2 medium sized oranges
1 cups of ice
4-5 fresh mint leaves
1 tbls honey
8 cantaloupe balls
16 raspberries or blueberries
8 popsicle sticks
8 dixie cups
Instructions
- Add the strawberries, banana, mint and ice to the blender.
- Squeeze the oranges into the blender, being careful not to let any seeds go in. Don't strain out the pulp though, thats the good stuff!
- Turn the blender on medium high.
- Stream the honey in through the feed hole on top of the blender. Set aside.
- Cut one side off each cantaloupe ball so they can stand up.
- Stick one popsicle stick in each cantaloupe ball and place in dixie cup, so it standing up.
- Add 2 berries to each cup.
- Carefully pour or spoon smoothie into cup, so they are almost full.
- Cover each with a paper muffin cup, poking a hole in the muffin cup to cover the cup.
- Freeze for at least 6 hours
- Tear away the dixie cup and enjoy!
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