Watermelon Rocket Popsicles

Over Memorial Day weekend, we decided to try a new twist on the traditional eating-of-watermelon: Watermelon Popsicles. I had seen a yummy recipe at Cupcakes and Cashmere a few weeks back, so decided to check it out.

First, Nick (no longer so sadly bald, thank GOD) helped chop up all the melon:

 Then, I made some simple syrup.

I didn't photograph it, but we squeezed some fresh lime juice, too. Next step - puree in the food processor. BIG FUN for Nick to pulse the melon in there:

Add some simple syrup and lime juice until you like the taste:

Pour in the molds (we have cool rocket ships) and freeze (Ben got involved at this point):

 Delicious. Seriously. The boys LOVED them:

Since then, we've made two more rounds. We just use whatever fruit looks like it's about to go bad. I think the tastiest so far were the "cutie" oranges where we squeezed out all the juice and made them the top layer, then pureed strawberries for the bottom layer. The kids go just as crazy for these as they do for sugary popsicles and really, it's straight fruit with maybe a hint of sugar. Not too bad! You can also make the simple syrup with raw sugar. It makes the syrup brown, but it seems to just blend in with whatever fruit you blend up.

What the ?

Why is this blog called "Groudy Pencils" anyway? What the F does that mean? No, it's not about chewed up, nasty pencils. Why would I do that?? When I was little, my parents read to me each night (yay parents!). They'd ask me each night what I wanted to read and, one of my most favorite books was Hansel and Gretel. I couldn't pronounce the name of the book, so I called it "Groudy Pencils". Now, it's kind of a nickname / reference to moi.

While we're on this subject, how disturbing is Hansel and Gretel and why do parents read it to young children?? Why does it seem like a good idea to read a story to a young child at bedtime about parents abandoning their children in the woods at night only to be taken in by a witch that wants to eat them??