Watermelon Raspberry and Lime Pops

You know those times when you buy a watermelon and it just isn't as good as you want it to be.  You don't want to waste it, but it isn't going to be delicious to just eat.  I have a solution for you - add some raspberries and lime and make popsicles!

It's a genius idea, refreshing and cold it is everything a summer treat could need to be!

The perfect way to enjoy that watermelon that you swore was going to be perfect and then turned out to be a little bit less than. 

Fresh Watermelon Mint Lemonade

I love a good drink! I know how that sounds, but I love to make a sweet icy treat and sit out in my porch swing with Joseph and enjoy the last few hours of the summer day. 

I made this lemonade because the watermelon that we bought was not good. It wasn't sweet and juicy and I couldn't get anyone to eat it. So I decided to see if I could use it up in a drink. 

I had lots of mint because I ordered a mint plant with my grocery pick-up order and they didn't have one... so they gave me 3!! packs of fresh mint leaves. I was swimming in it. 

I love to make lemonade by putting whole lemons (that I cut the peels off of) in my blender, so I thought I would test this out.  It is Delicious! So sweet and refreshing and the mint and watermelon together are just perfect. You'll wonder how you didn't put them together before. 

Watermelon Frozen Yogurt Bark

I love fun food. I guess to my brain, food that looks cute just tastes better. 

I don't know if that is really true, but it is awfully fun to make, and I love being the mom that says, Who wants Frozen Yogurt and then bringing this outside and letting them be amazed at all the colors and textures and tastes. 

Food should be fun, don't you think?

You'll want to make this the day before you want to serve it. Depending on how cold your freezer is and how thin you make the bark, you might be able to get away with making it in the morning to serve in the afternoon, but I wouldn't risk it the first time.  I always like my first time making something to be a low-key test without too much pressure - otherwise if it fails, I am really crushed emotionally. 

Here are the ingredients that you'll need - parchment paper or non-stick foil (something that you can lift out),  a round pan (a cake pan or a pie pan work great), yogurt in a flavor you like, I used vanilla and colored it with food coloring, so you'll need food coloring, 2 plastic zip bags and mini chocolate chips. 

Color your yogurt and put it into 2 separate plastic bags.

Use your green first, snip off a corner of the bag and pipe around the edge of your circle. 

Then snip off the corner of the pink bag and pipe that into the center of the green. 

I am a terrible mess maker and so then I needed to go back with a small spatula and smooth out my messy piping job. It looked much nice after that. 

 After that, sprinkle some mini chocolate chips in the center and then put it in your freezer - laying it as flat as you can. 

When you are ready to serve it, take it out about 5 minutes before you are wanting to serve. Remove the foil or parchment from the pan and let it sit on your counter. 

When you are ready to serve it, cut it into watermelon slices. 

Fair Warning - this is pretty messy.  My 14 year old said, "this is like holding a scoop of ice cream in your hand"  I served it outside on a hot day while we were playing in the sprinkler. So the mess didn't bother anyone at all. And the heat may have had a lot to do with how fast it was melting. 

But how fun is this? Icy frozen treats, shaped like a watermelon, that taste like vanilla and has chocolate chips "seeds" I love everything about this. 

10 Best Ideas for Summer Meal Planning

Last night was one of those nights that you wonder as a parent, how you are ever going to get it done. My kids are out of school so the summer activities have started, but it was the last week of May and so the spring activities are just finishing up. 

I fed the kids yesterday at 3 before we started dragging everyone around to all our commitments and we ended up back at home at 7:30 with dinner needing to be made and a whole lot of people that needed to get ready for bed right after that. 

I feel like meal planning in the summer is a lot different that during the rest of the year. Schedules are one reason, but another is also the weather and how much you don't want to heat up your kitchen and how nice it is to be able to cook outside. And one of the very best reasons to change up your meal planning is to take advantage of all the fresh summer produce. Not just what is going to be on sale (and in season) at your local grocery store, but at farmer's markets and from your own (or your neighbors' gardens)

1. Make a Flexible Meal Plan - Instead of planning what you will eat each night, plan 4 or 5 different meals that you can have any night of the week. 

2. It Doesn't Always Have to Be a Meal - last night we had sliced apples, bowls of cottage cheese, cherry tomatoes, hummus with carrots, celery and pita bread. Nope it wasn't a meal that anybody made, but we sat around our table and nobody left hungry - that's a win. 

3. Don't forget Breakfast - Breakfast for dinner is a meal planner's dream, but don't just let it be a busy school night thing. Whole Grain pancakes, Eggs on toast, or a quick frittata can be a dinner time saver. 

4. Use Your Pantry - I am a big fan of having a few meals that you can make entirely with items from your pantry. Spaghetti is one for our family. Chicken and Rice that uses canned chicken is another. I can make each of those in under 15 minutes. 

5. Use Your Farmer's Market - One of my favorite summer time dinners growing up was cucumbers and tomatoes. That was all of it. My mom would slice up 5-6 huge tomatoes from the garden and then just as many cucumbers and put them individual plates and that was dinner. Sometimes she'd add corn if that was at the farm stand as well. Then we'd have peaches for dinner. I loved it! 

6. Use Your Grill - I love grilling because it divides the kitchen duties right in half at our house. (I don't grill, that is Joseph's job). He'll throw hamburgers on the grill and I'll make a pasta salad inside. Or I'll marinade a few chicken breast and some veggies during that day and he'll throw them on the grill when he gets home and I'll set the table. Everything tastes better on the grill and it won't make your house hot. 

7. Make it Salad and Sandwiches Night - I love nights in the fall / winter where you put on a big pot of soup, make some rolls or toast a grilled cheese. Try that same kind of thinking during the summer. Make a big green salad, add as many veggies as you can find and put together a simple sandwich or wrap. It doesn't have to be fancy, tomato sandwiches are my favorite in the summer. 

8. Make a Huge Salad - You can pretty much call anything a "salad" nowadays, but that is the beauty of it. Add some pasta or rice to your greens, or add a cans of beans. Make a pasta salad and add beans and spinach to it. It takes just a minute to mix up a healthy vinaigrette with a mild vinegar, some olive oil and some herbs. Toss veggies into it and a whole grain pasta or some brown rice and you have a one bowl dinner. 

9. Plan to Not Stick to the Plan -  This one is a hard one for me, because I really like things to go as planned, but summer just isn't that way. Baseball games go long, you just don't want to leave the pool or kids beg to play "just a little bit longer". Stay flexible, or plan to be able to be flexible. You'll have much less stress and lots more fun if you know it isn't going to stick to the list. 

10. Make it a Picnic - Everything tastes better outside, don't you think so? Spread out a blanket and take your spaghetti outside. It doesn't have to be sandwiches or fried chicken. I love to take our Peanut Noodles to the park or to the pool, it can stay room temperature or be eaten cold. I like to fill it with carrots and cucumbers during the summer months. I pack it in a big container and pack plastic bowls to serve the kids. 

Summer does look different than the rest of the year, and that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Family mealtime can be just as easy and even more important with everyone going their separate ways. Enjoy the seasonal freshness and cut a watermelon for dessert and eat it outside for good measure. 

Creamy Watermelon Smoothie or Popsicles

We have a strange year with watermelons. 

We have had a harder time than usual picking a good one - and we have seemed to struggle to get through them. But above all, I hate wasting food.  So what that watermelon wasn't the best thing you ever ate ---  you aren't going to NOT eat it. 

That seems a little harsh now that I type it, but really food costs money and it always hurts to throw money away. 

So a few times this summer, I have frozen cubes of watermelon that weren't quite as delicious as we had hoped they would be, or that we weren't going to get to in time before they spoiled. 

**Keep in mind you can freeze almost any fruits and vegetables - they most likely won't be perfect for eating just "raw" but you can put them in smoothies, soups, pies, cookies, breads, oatmeal, **

This recipe includes watermelon and plain yogurt. 

I used 2 cups frozen watermelon cubes and 1/2 cup yogurt to start - then added more yogurt as needed to "smooth" it out - you can also add milk. 

If your watermelon wasn't sweet to begin with, you might want to add a bit of honey or use a vanilla flavored yogurt. 

I have to let the frozen watermelon cubes sit out about 5 minutes to begin to "melt" because I do not have one of those industrial blenders that could blend a car.  But once the hard freeze comes off the watermelon cubes - then blend up just fine. 

If you are having a hard time, put a little bit of milk or water in the bottom of your blender. 

Because the watermelon is frozen, you can go ahead and enjoy it right now - if you used a lot of watermelon is acts as a perfect Ice Cream, 

If you used more yogurt or your watermelon cubes contained more juice, then you are going to end up with a bit of a smoothie. 

Here it was a little bit like soft serve ice cream - Yummy! 

Because I ended up with more mixture that the kids wanted to eat, I poured the rest into popsicle molds to freeze for later. 

You can do this with any smoothie that you make - green ones, peach ones, chocolate ones. I highly recommend picking up Popsicle molds - they are fantastic.

A little behind the scenes beauty for you - I am the messiest cook in the entire world - I can't even fill Popsicle molds without it turning into a disaster.