First, I have to tell you that my inspiration to write this blog stems from three sources:

222 Million Tons – This is the amount of food we waste each year. This food blog wants to put a change to that by offering delicious recipes and ways to take action on how to waste less food;

Your Kind of Salad: Another food blog where I found this beautiful recipe for watermelon pops;

and, my daughter.

If you were  confused at the headline of this blog posting, you are not alone.

When my daughter was about 16 months old and was being watched by her aunt on a hot July afternoon, it was this occassion that my daughter put together one of her first sentences beyond “I love you.”

It was: “I popeese”

Translation: Ice Pop Please.

It was on this hot day that my daughter wanted what most of us want on a hot day, something very cold.

An ice pop.

So, she repeated this sentence over and over to her aunt and her aunt’s boyfriend who could not figure out what she was trying to say.

Now, any other infant would have had a meltdown tantrum at this point. Not my daughter. She simply walked over to the refrigerator, and, with her tiny hand raised above as if she was holding the torch like Lady Liberty, she patiently, and a bit more slowly, repeated

I -Pop – Peeze!

She finally got what she wanted:

Flash forward 15 years:

The other day I came home with one of those cute, personal sized seedless watermelons

I will not make that mistake again.

While it was cute as a button on the outside, inside, it was a mealy, mushy disappointment.

But it was $3. I couldn’t just toss it away. What a waste of food and money.

So, following the recipe I found on Your Kind of  Salad:

I scooped out the watermelon flesh:

Pureed it in a blender

Passed the pulp through a strainer.

Then to this I added one cup of corn syrup (I know this sounds like a lot of a bad thing but the corn syrup adds a nice smooth finish to the pops) and the juice of one lime:

And poured it into the molds:

Then the hard part. You have to wait about six anguishing hours for the pops  to freeze.

At last, they are frozen.

So, when the world hands you mushy watermelon, don’t throw it out, make ice pops!