Watermelon Season

Lately I've been coming home with watermelon halves - huge halves - from the organic garden where I volunteer. Watermelons are one of those fruits that really make you appreciate eating in season. It's so delicious to bite into a nice crisp juicy bite of cold watermelon during the heat of summer, and about the time you think you can't stand another bite of melon, they're gone for another year.

I've been liquidizing my watermelon lately. No, I don't mean that I'm selling pieces of it off at LOW, LOW PRICES! Rather, I mean that I'm blending it up into tasty drinks. So far, I've made a tasty smoothie and agua fresca.

But, I'm getting the fruity meat ahead of the rind here. The first thing I had to do was turn the great big halves into ready-to-blend watermelon cubes.

All the rind was cut off and tossed in the sink until I had a chance to take it out to the compost bin. I'm not making any of the watermelon rind pickles this year and so far have not felt compelled to make watermelon relish either. I don't have chickens so this just had to go directly to compost. Hm, I wonder if the four deer that wandered through the other day might have liked nibbling on it.

Then the meat of the melon needed to be seeded. Don't discard those seeds! Save them to roast and add flavor to beans.

The recipe for the smoothie I made came from a fun little book called "Great American Smoothies." The Blue Dragon recipe called for watermelon juice but I just tossed in the watermelon cubes figuring more fiber is better anyway. It was blended up with blueberries and banana along with some Kashi nuggets (think Grape-nuts), yielding a very tasty and filling drink.

Yesterday, I wanted a simpler drink so I made agua fresca ("fresh water"). You can find plenty of recipes online. Mine resulted from reading a number of recipes and choosing the amounts and ingredients I liked.

Watermelon Agua Fresca
3 cups chopped and seeded watermelon
1 cup ice water
a dozen fresh mint leaves
2 tbs - 1/4 cup sugar (to taste)
Juice from 1/2 lime

Place everything in the blender and process until liquefied. Serve over ice with a couple of mint leaves for garnish. Serves two.