Watermelon Rind Pickles
This is such a traditional Southern relish!
This is such a traditional Southern relish!
No, that’s not a typo. This week we’ve got a salsa recipe that works with either your watermelon or your field peas. If you’re like me and want to eat your field peas just as field peas this week, then hold onto this recipe if you get to the point you want to do something different with those pretty peas.
Have we talked about combining tomato and watermelon in a salad before? Fabulous. Add some feta or goat cheese or little mozzarella balls if you like. Basil? Yum.
Use any seasoning mix you have in your pantry. This is just a reminder that poultry and melon are a really nice salad combination. If you still have some blueberries, throw them in. Store-bought or your favorite homemade dressing and you’re done. I wouldn’t add tomato, but a cucumber would be nice. And something for a little crunch.
This recipe is from Austin, Texas pastry chef Jessica Maher. Perfect way to beat the summer heat. Doctor up a little store bought frozen yogurt, make the easy soda (a lot like the preceding soup recipe) and you’ve got a perfect summer dessert.
I’m on a melon mission this week. We’ve been making cantaloupe granita from a great recipe from Walker Brown of Inman’s Park’s Wisteria Restaurant. Can’t share that recipe yet, it publishes in the AJC on August 11, but here’s a similar recipe for a melon soup that you could turn into a granita just by adding a little simple syrup and then freezing it. If you need some other melon ideas, check out http://grassfedcow.com/ingredient/watermelon/. The recipes there are generally for watermelon, but you could use the cantaloupe in most.
This recipe is fabulous. No idea where I first found it. Use it as a cold soup as it was first intended, add a little seltzer or club soda and make a spritzer, add a little gin and make a cocktail, add a little simple syrup and freeze it for a granita. It couldn’t be simpler and it couldn’t be more delicious.
I’ve been wanting to make pickled watermelon rind and am delighted to have an organic melon for just that purpose. Can I convince you to give pickling a try?
Martha McMillin of The Preserving Place suggests wrapping pickled watermelon rind in prosciutto for a great Southern twist on the traditional melon-prosciutto combination. Yum.
This martini recipe came from the folks at East Atlanta Village Farmers Market. It’s from food blog Glue & Glitter. The original recipe called for watermelon, but it would work with any melon that came in your box. I got watermelon, I know there were other varieties as well.
The next time we have a watermelon I’ll give you a recipe for making watermelon rind pickles, but love this idea from Fine Cooking magazine for a watermelon rind relish. No canning required! The recipe calls for 1/2 of a jalapeno, but of course you can vary that by the tolerance for heat in your household. Although I have to say, every jalapeno I’ve cooked with this year has been pretty spicy! This should keep pretty well in your refrigerator – maybe for a month? 1 (4-pound). watermelon
I will probably just eat my waternelon in big chunks, but if you want to do something different, this lovely salad idea from Bill Smith of Crook’s Corner restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina is a nice combination of sweet, spicy and sour.