I love watermelon . . .
It means summer to me . . .
It means parties and playing and juicy sweet goodness!
Imagine my surprise to find an old fashioned seeded watermelon at the store the other day! I told my husband, I WANT THAT!!! So he got it for me!
I'm a cheap date.
When I got it home I had to decide what I wanted to do with it. It's a lot of watermelon after all and nobody in my family has the passion for it quite the way I do. I thought I'd make ya'll a cocktail because watermelon cocktails are THE BEST! Plus it's a holiday weekend and you're going to be needing some beautiful refreshing cocktails right?
Then I thought . . . (dangerous I know!) I thought this is the perfect watermelon for a watermelon basket! I should cut a watermelon basket so everybody can see how EASY it is.
But . . . nobody will be impressed anymore when I bring one to a party . . .
Oh well! It's more important that everybody have beautiful watermelon baskets!
So now like all those fancy chefs on television I give you watermelon two ways . . .
Wash up your watermelon and start to give it little pokes to see which two sides are the most "stable." I'm going to split it in half so I want two stable sides opposite each other!
Okay, I've found them! If your watermelon doesn't have any stable sides just throw them on a tray of ice when you're serving. People will think you're trying to keep them cold. When I have a truly twirly one I'll occasionally slice a flat surface into it. Remember you're the boss of the watermelon!
My stem ends are pretty much centered so I'll work around them. You want a nice wide knife with a good point on it.
The further you stick the knife in, the bigger the point.
Just stick the point at the top of the last slice and push in! It'll slice down from here.
Flip the knife over and it'll slice in the upward direction!
Now my watermelon was so perfectly ripe it actually cracked a little occasionally. But nobody noticed. Well, I didn't notice.
I'm half way there!
I had to fudge a little to get it to match up at the end. No big deal.
Now flip it on it's side and push the two halves apart!
Voila! You're not even noticing that they're not perfect are you!
Mmmmm! Fruit with seeds tends to be so much sweeter than their non-seeded counterparts.
Now about those seeds! They tend to run in channels in the watermelon so go ahead and . . .
. . . and dig out those channels. This pure juicy goodness is going into our 2nd watermelon recipe so throw it in a colander over a bowl to collect the juice.
I just cut out chunks of melon . . .
Throw any seedy parts in the colander.
I just chunk up the now seedless watermelon. Now if you're finicky you can use a melon baller and cut nice little balls out of the melon. But I want to eat as much watermelon as possible.
Scrape the rind pretty clean.
That's all goodness for the cocktails!
Now you have two beautiful, disposable, bowls to carry fruit salad in! I have a tendency to cut up a cantaloupe and honey dew melon and throw all the chunks in the halves. You'll end up with a nice big bowl of leftover fruit too.
In general this whole operations takes about 45 minutes. So it's not that bad for a start to finish party dish.
Now on to the fun part!
You can use any type of colander you have! Just push the stuff through it with a wood spoon or potato masher.
You can even squeeze the pulp with your nice clean hands . . .
If you're tired you can even throw it in the blender . . .
. . . I chose a low speed so as not to break up too many seeds.
There it goes!
Now that great big watermelon gave me about 3 Liters of watermelon pulp and juice.
Which is so convenient because it means this whole bottle of vodka is perfect! Raspberry and watermelon are delicious together! You could use a melon vodka with success though. But raspberry is my favorite!
Now for a food safe, freezer safe, container! This ice cream container will do.
If you pour it in the container nice and slow . . .
. . . all the bits of seed will stay in the bottom of the bowl. Not that they'll hurt you! Swallowing one of these won't make you pregnant.
Add the liquor! Then throw it in the freezer.
Through the magic of the Internet . . .
It's done! It is perfect sweet and perfectly refreshing!
The color! The color! It just screams SUMMER IS HERE!
This drink still has plenty of the watermelon pulp in it so I think it technically qualifies as a smoothie.
So there's fiber . . . and no added sugar, no high fructose corn syrup! It's for your health really. Look mine even has leafy greens included!
Frozen Watermelon Cooler
4 parts pureed watermelon pulp
1 part raspberry vodka
Mix together and freeze!
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