I Bought a Watermelon Part 1

Summer may not officially be here on the calendar but this teacher is now on summer vacation! What screams summer - watermelon. The “problem” with buying a watermelon is they are huge and that is lot of food to try to sue before it turns bad. Not like the bad that Michael Jackson sang about but the kind where it appears you have 25 pounds of food to process in some way before it begins to turn into too ripe food,

One way is to use it in a salad. I am not sure why watermelon and strawberries is such a great combo, but it is. I will cut up both fruits, mix them together in a bowl and call it a fruit salad. I never have leftovers.

Another way to to work on an Aqua Fresca. This is a hispanic/latin food item. In Honduras and other Latin American countries they tend to drink natural fruit juices. There are lots of different recipes all over the internet. If you have been here for any length of time you know I treat a recipe as starting point.

I took about half of the watermelon and cut it into chunks. I then processed it in food processor (you can also use a blender but I do not have a blender) and chop it all up. After the processing I pour the mixture through a sieve, catching the juice in a measuring cup.

I used the remains in the sieve to make fruit roll ups in the dehydrator. After straining I had a little over 7 cups of watermelon juice. There is actually quite a bit you could do with this juice, make jelly or sorbet. I elected to drink it.

I poured about 3 cups into a pitcher, added 3 cups of water and a small amount of sugar. You could use any sweetener you like in whatever quantity you desire. I tend to think watermelon is very sweet so I used a very scant ¼ cup of sugar. Give it a good shake and pour into a glass over some ice. It is a very refreshing drink. Simple but delicious.