It's August, and, predictably, it's a bit warm here in our small corner of the Earth. We are very, very big fans of popsicles to combat the heat, which we make in our resusable little molds. We are such big fans of popsicles that this little popsicle-light garland made the cut of things that "spark joy" during my recent (and ongoing) ruthless purge.

The other day, we were perusing the wares and food at Brooklyn Flea, and People's Pops was offering a cantaloupe mint popsicle. I'm not a huge fan of cantaloupe, but it sounded appealing on that blistering day, so I got one. Without exaggerating, it was the perfect, platonic, encapsulation of refreshment on a summer day. Naturally sweet from the cantaloupe and cooling from the mint, it quenched my thirst and reminded me why I love summer.

In other words, they nailed it. So Lou and I got home and decided to try our hand at cantaloupe pops ourselves. True, People's Pops brick-and-mortar store is two blocks from our home, but I wanted to see if we could get as close to perfection as they could. And when I found a recipe purporting to use People's Pops' from their cook book, I was stoked.

Lou and I gathered what we needed: half a ripe, fresh cantaloupe, a large handful of fresh mint, a lemon, and some sugar. We made a minty simple syrup by steeping the mint in regular simple syrup, and then combined our ingredients in a food processor.

I wanted a chunky popsicle, so we pulsed the ingredients to about this level of smoothness, and then added a few tablespoons of very finely chopped mint.

After pouring the mixture into our molds, we froze for six hours and then enjoyed!

Cantaloupe Mint Ice Pops

Adapted from People's Pops & Eating Well

Makes 6 pops

Ingredients

one small or half a large cantaloupe, seeded and diced, with flesh equaling about 3 cups
1 cup of water
1 cup of sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice (juice of one-two lemons)
bunch of fresh mint, equaling three tablespoons for the mint syrup and three finely chopped tablespoons for the popsicles

Directions

1. Combine water and sugar in a small saucepan, bring to a boil, and boil until sugar is dissolved (just a few minutes). Remove from heat, add mint and allow to cool. Strain liquid.

2. In the bowl of a food processor, add cantaloupe, lemon juice and two - three tablespoons mint syrup. Pulse until it reaches your desired smoothness. Then add finely chopped mint and pulse once or twice to combine.

3. Pour into popsicle molds (or paper cups) and freeze for at least six hours. If using paper cups, pour into cups, freeze for half an hour, insert treat sticks and then continue freezing for six hours.

PS - that photo above, where Lou's reaching for a pop? I didn't tell her to do that. She dove into my photo, and when I asked what she was doing, she said, "Don't you want people to see someone reaching for a popsicle because it's so delicious?" That girl.

Cantaloupe Mint Ice Pops

Enjoy!