Yesterday I made a great new invention in our house--"Watermelon Water". It came about because my kid's were pestering me for a pack of Honest Kid's Fruit Punch, which I had bought for their camp trips the day before. My little trick to lighten their load is freeze a juice box or water bottle, and use that for their lunches on long trips. By the end of the day they have a cold beverage and are not schlepping around heavy ice packs. The drinks, although a natural blend of fruit juices including watermelon, are about 60 cents for 9- ounces, a bit more than 1 cup. I wanted to save these as a special treat, and had some almost "past prime" slices of watermelon in the fridge. You know how watermelon gets after you cut it? It's a bit shiny on the surface, and the mouth feel is kind of yucky. Well apparently pureed it's perfectly fine. So I blended chunks of watermelon, ice and water and stuck it in a thermos for the kids to take to camp.
The bonus is with my drink they're getting the whole fruit...that means fiber folks. And, for the same price as a 6-pack of the juice packs, I can get about 48 servings of watermelon water. That's 8 times as many drinks for the same price! The best part is that my kid's decided they like my watermelon water better than the Honest Kid's Fruit Punch...o.k., Jessica Alba, I have one up on you!
There are a number of different things you can do with this recipe. First if you have too much watermelon "turning the corner" so to speak, before you can use it up, cut it in chunks, put it in a single layer in a zip top bag in the freezer, and lay flat to freeze. When ready to use, simply reduce the amount of ice in your recipe and use the frozen watermelon. You can freeze the processed watermelon juice in ice cube trays and reconstitute with some water in the blender. Or, pour watermelon water in ice pop molds or in ice cream maker for a granita like treat. Mint or another fruit, like peaches, strawberries or mangoes may be added to bump up the flavor profile.
This recipe literally takes 5 minutes or less...and is totally doable on busy weekday mornings. It uses just 3 simple ingredients to make H2whoa! I eyeball the ingredients, so add more or less of any of the ingredients to achieve a consistency that is pleasing to you.
Watermelon Water
2 cups watermelon cubed (about a 1-inch thick half-circle slice)
6 ice cubes
1/2 cup cold water
Put watermelon, ice and water in a blender (I have a cheapy blender...you don't need a Vitamix to make this work), and blend on high speed until smooth. Add more or less water to reach desired consistency. Serve immediately.
Yield: Approximately 16 ounces or 2 servings.
Posts
I was googling for recipes and clicked along to your blog. Nice! I saw a brief video from a kosher blogger today of a watermelon drink. The watermelon had a small hole cut into the top, and a blender was inserted into the hole to blend the watermelon! The puree was poured out the hole into a cup. Looked neat, but potentially disastrous!
ReplyDelete