Summer Watermelon Spritz

You can find frozen diced fruit in most supermarkets for making smoothies but I found something I'd not come across before recently - Tesco has frozen watermelon balls in beautiful little spheres which are good for so much more than throwing in a blender!

I made this drink which took just moments but tasted delicious. It's a glass of lemonade straight from the fridge with frozen watermelon balls instead of ice cubes and some fresh mint. If you like tonic water you can try that and I bet it would be nice with a splash of something alcoholic!

I muddled the fruit around in the glass as it softened and ate it at the end using a milkshake straw - a straw that has a little spoon on the end. It was just the thing for this hot weather we've been having!

I'm sharing this with CookBlogShare hosted this week by Lost in Food.

Vegan Watermelon Sorbet and an Easy Watermelon Cocktail

I had a real ‘I carried a watermelon’ moment on holiday. My husband and I were staying in a small village in Gozo (an island off Malta) and had walked to the local grocery shop to buy food for the week, having been told the shop would deliver. Forget Tesco two-hour delivery slots: we purchased our groceries, told to pack it into an empty cardboard box and leave it in the corner, and they would bring it to us in about half an hour.

 

Almost an hour later there was no sign so I left my husband in our rooms and went over to the reception of our apartment complex - and found the delivery driver there asking directions. I hopped in his car and we drove over to our building, where he proceeded to unload the car. I asked if I could carry anything, which is how I ended up ringing the bell on our apartment door, and my husband opened it to find me standing there holding a giant round fruit and uttering the immortal line from Dirty Dancing: “I carried a watermelon!”.

 

Watermelon is delicious when the weather is hot; you can freeze it in cubes or munch on a whole slice. There are loads of recipes you can make with watermelon as well.

Watermelon cocktail

 

While I was in Gozo I made an impromptu watermelon cocktail given I had very few tools and ingredients; cut a few chunks of watermelon and discard the seeds and muddle in the bottom of a tumbler until the watermelon has broken down a bit (you could also put it in a blender if you wanted a smoother drink).

 

Add a splash of rose wine (or more than a splash, if you like) and top up with lemonade. If possible, enjoy beside the swimming pool as I did!

 

Watermelon Sorbet

 

We had a barbecue last weekend despite the weather, as it had been organised several weeks in advance and there wasn’t a suitable date we could postpone to. It was rainy and not particularly warm so most people were indoors – luckily we have a gas barbecue with a lid so we could still cook outside!

 

I made a couple of desserts in advance, including the chocolate ice cream from a KitchenAid recipe I made once before (but leaving out the chocolate chips this time), which is delicious. I needed a vegan dessert as well and decided to make a very simple watermelon sorbet. Simply dice some watermelon and remove the black seeds and put in a blender with some sugar syrup (which you can buy in a bottle or make yourself). Spoon into a plastic container and freeze overnight or longer. You will need to take the sorbet out of the freezer for an hour or so before you want to serve, as it will be rock solid; after an hour at room temperature you can scoop it into bowls and enjoy.

 

 

I was so busy at the barbecue I forgot to take a better photo!

This month’s Food ‘n’ Flix challenge is hosted by Chef Sarah Elizabeth who has chosen the film Dirty Dancing. I loved this film as a teenager and there’s something very timeless about it even though it’s 30 years old (I can’t believe that!). The idea of the challenge is to share a recipe inspired by the film and having had my own ‘I carried a watermelon’ moment, that was the inspiration I chose.

5 Easy Lunchbox Salads you can take to work for lunch

I've been eating a lot of salads lately, and taking one in to work every day for my lunch. It's cheaper than going out and buying one every day and this way I can put exactly what I want into it. Sometimes I get into a bit of a rut eating the same salads every day and end up looking around the internet for inspiration so I thought I'd share my current top five.

Please excuse the simple presentation - this is literally how I take the salads into work for lunch!
First up is really easy - any types of lettuce that you like, topped with feta cheese and chunks of fresh watermelon. A light vinaigrette dressing goes well with this. I usually eat this salad with a packet of ready cooked chicken pieces for protein and to make it more filling.

This salad is my latest addiction: pear, blue cheese and walnut. Again you can use any type of lettuce as a base, and if you like things like cucumber add it in (I don't). I used gorgonzola - I was going to use Roquefort but couldn't get any, but this worked really well. Top with peeled and sliced pear and a handful of walnuts. This goes well with a blue cheese dressing.

 

A different type of cheese for this salad: goat's cheese with bacon lardons (you need to cook the lardons first then let them go cold before adding to the salad). Use on a bed of your favourite lettuce. This goes well with a wine vinegar and Dijon mustard dressing.

 

 

 

This one takes a little longer to make but is good if you want something more substantial for lunch or to take on a picnic. Cook some pasta and drain; while it's still warm, toss through some green pesto from a jar, add some crayfish or prawns (I used crayfish here) and some pine nuts. You can serve this hot or cold.

Finally a bulgur wheat-based salad. This one does take a bit of preparation but you can make a larger quantity in one go. Put the bulgur wheat in a bowl and cover with water; leave for 15 minutes and then drain. Bring a pan of water to the boil - you need roughly three cups water to one cup bulgur wheat. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and leave to stand for 5 minutes and drain off any excess water.

I used cubes of roasted butternut squash in this salad; sweet potato works really well. If you don't have time to cook, you can buy tubs of roasted sweet potato, butternut squash and carrot to add to salads from Tesco. I've also added feta cheese and some fresh parsley.

 

 

I've certainly got no excuse to have the same thing every day for lunch now!

Watermelon Smoothie Mixer Hack (and a cocktail)

I saw this on Facebook recently - someone had a brilliant trick with a whole watermelon (I don't know why these things are always called 'hacks') which enables you to turn the fruit into a refreshing drink in less than a minute - without needing to peel and cut it up and put it in a blender.

On Saturday I went to a barbecue at the home of Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker, who is a good friend of mine. She'd seen this Facebook clip as well and had tried it out, with perfect results! She had more than one watermelon so demonstrated again to a rapt audience, and allowed me to film it and put it on my blog.

All you need is a whole watermelon - putting it in a bowl to keep it steady like Ros does here is a good idea. Use a sharp knife to cut a square out of the top of the watermelon, large enough for the paddle beaters of a hand mixer. You can take one of the beaters out and just use one if you like.

Stick the mixer into the watermelon, and turn it on! Ros said you can tell when you've mixed it enough - then all you do is turn it upside down and pour out the watermelon juice!

It's brilliant and a real party trick. The juice tasted lovely, though was quite thick, so I mixed mine with lemonade and added a shot of vodka for a very refreshing cocktail.

Watermelon Fake Cake

 

 This is a wonderful alternative to cake - and quite fun to serve to people who think it is a cake, until you cut inside, and reveal it is actually watermelon!

I got the idea from something I saw on a Slimming World Facebook page; if you left off the nuts around the outside the whole thing would be completely syn free.

All you need is a watermelon, a tub of Quark, sweetener (optional), flaked almonds or chopped mixed nuts (optional) and any fruit you like to decorate the top.

I've had a bit of an obsession with watermelon recently, as regular readers will notice!

Slice the top and bottom off the watermelon so it will sit flat and then use a sharp knife to remove the rind by cutting down from the top, turning it over and doing the same from the other side.

Mix the tub of Quark with a little sweetener (such as Splenda) if desired. Pat dry the watermelon with some kitchen towel and spread the Quark around the outside and on the top. I've already put it on a cake board at this point.

Take handfuls of flaked almonds or chopped mixed nuts and stick around the outside.

Top with fruit to decorate.

And here is the finished 'cake'!

I took this into work and my colleagues were surprised when they realised what was inside - and I think happy that I made something healthy! This is great for a summer party when it is too hot to eat cake but you want to make something.

 

Stuck In The Tree is a bingo review site that is about having fun online and off; they are running a 'bakespiration' competition so I am sending them my cake in the hope they will include it in their gallery.

I'm also sending this to Ren Behan's Simple and In Season, hosted this month by Sally at My Custard Pie.

Shaheen at Allotment 2 Kitchen is hosting a blog challenge called the Vegetable Palette, and this month is asking for entries using red fruits or vegetables. Watermelons are a kind of reddish pink so that will do!

Watermelon Passionfruit Margarita

Fruity cocktails are perfect for the summer whether it is at a barbecue, at a beach bar or even just at home grumbling about how long it is taking to move house when you are dealing with the world's most frustrating people. Or is that just me...?

This month's Random Recipes from Belleau Kitchen is not a cooking challenge this time; instead Dom wants us to select a cocktail book at random from our collection (I have one or two I think, not enough that choosing at random would be hard!) and choose a page at random and make that cocktail. Now, as I was expecting to have moved house by now, nearly all of my cookery books are sealed up in boxes. As it turns out, my vendors are on holiday this week and my buyer on holiday the week after (no holiday for me, sigh) and there's still no sign of when we are going to exchange. Which means I need a stiff drink!

I hope Dom doesn't mind that I didn't select a recipe at random, but the way this cocktail came about is still fairly random. My boyfriend's mum had bought a watermelon on a whim but then decided she didn't know what to do with it, so gave it to me (random ingredient). I then opened my drinks cupboard (which funnily enough wasn't yet packed and sealed up, it was just that we left the kitchen until last, promise!) and grabbed the first bottle I found, which was tequila (random selection). And then decided to make a cocktail from those ingredients.

Tequila is used in margaritas so that's what I've made. The watermelon is lovely frozen, and then you have a frozen margarita, so if you have time, cut a slice of watermelon and pop it in the freezer for an hour or so.

Chop the watermelon into cubes and put in a blender with about 100ml of either lemonade lemon and lime flavour fizzy water.

To sweeten the drink still further (I do like a sugary cocktail!) you can use either sugar syrup or passion fruit syrup - I bought this online from Funkin Syrup and have been using it in all sorts of things lately. Add a generous glug or more depending on how sweet you want it. Pulse in the blender until the watermelon is pureed. Finally add the tequila (a shot's worth per person) and either pulse in the blender again or transfer to a cocktail shaker and shake well.

Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a wedge of watermelon.

I'm sending this to Random Recipes, hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen.

Spicy Salmon with Watermelon Salsa

When I bought a big slice of watermelon recently I made several different recipes; this is the last one that I hadn't blogged about yet. The recipe comes from the Food Network; I adapted it slightly to fit the ingredients I had in the house.

Serves 1
salmon fillet
For the watermelon salsa, you need:
Half a small red onion, diced
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp sweetener
cubes of watermelon
chopped chives

For the salmon glaze:
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp paprika



Mix the ingredients for the salsa and marinate for about an hour.
Mix the ingredients for the glaze in a small pan and heat gently. Brush the marinade onto both sides of the salmon, place the salmon in a lightly oiled frying pan and pour the rest of the marinade over the top. Fry the salmon gently on both sides until cooked and serve with the salsa.

Watermelon Cocktail

I like to think I'm quite good at using up leftovers. Recently, I bought a quarter of a watermelon for £1 from Morrisons. I used it to make salmon with watermelon salsa (which I haven't blogged yet, but will); watermelon and feta salad and this chilled watermelon soup with crayfish, which tasted amazing. There was still a little watermelon left even after all that, so I decided to make a cocktail.

This cocktail doesn't have a name as I just grabbed some of the open bottles from my cupboard. The leftover watermelon had been blended to a liquid with a dash of white wine for the soup; I mixed the remains of the liquid in a cocktail shaker with some vodka and triple sec and strained it into a cocktail glass. Now that's what I call using up leftovers!

Chilled Watermelon Soup with Crabsticks and Crayfish

I had some watermelon to use up after making this salad and found a recipe in the Saturday Kitchen cookbook for chilled melon soup with langoustines and mint. It uses Cantaloupe and watermelon, but I decided to make it just with the watermelon that I already had. It also uses langoustines which are quite expensive; I'd just bought a packet of crayfish tails from Lidl and always have crabsticks in the fridge - I've loved them since I was a child and more recently found out they are syn-free on Slimming World so I like them as a snack. I thought they would work well in this recipe, so adapting it from the one in the Saturday Kitchen book, here's what I did.

Chop the leftover watermelon - about a third of a large slice which I think was about a quarter of a watermelon overall - and place in a blender.

 Add a splash of white wine and lime juice and blend to a liquid

Marinate the crayfish in 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil and 1 tbsp white wine vinegar with some shredded fresh mint

Whip about 100ml double cream until thick

Mix a little chopped mint into the cream. I used an ice cream scoop to make it a nice shape

Stack four crabsticks in the bottom of a soup bowl

Pile the marinaded crayfish on top and pour the soup around the sides

 Use the ice cream scoop to add a scoop of cream on top

 I wasn't really sure I was going to like this but it tasted absolutely amazing - I highly recommend it! A chilled soup is lovely for lunch in this hot weather and the zingy lime and sweetness of the watermelon, with a hint of seafood, works wonderfully together. I don't think I would bother with the cream next time, and would probably use a scoop of fat-free Greek-style yogurt instead. You could also try swirling the yogurt through the soup rather than placing it on top.

 I'm sending this to Credit Crunch Munch, as I used up leftover melon and swapped the langoustines for cheaper ingredients for this recipe. The challenge is hosted this month by Fish Fingers for Tea, on behalf of Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food 4 All.

Watermelon and Feta Cheese Salad

Today we had a food tasting session at Slimming World, where everyone brings a different dish and we all get to try it and swap recipes. I normally like to bake a low-syn cake for food tastings but it was too hot to cook last night, so I decided to make a salad. I also had a large slice of watermelon I'd bought on a whim a few days before, so when I saw a recipe for watermelon and feta salad in the latest edition of Slimming World magazine I knew it would be a good thing to make.

You can adapt this as you like and add different things, but the idea is that it is a Greek-style salad. All you do is chop the ingredients and the dressing is just lemon juice. So here's what I used:

half a large slice of watermelon
2 large tomatoes
half a cucumber
1 green pepper
1 red onion
150g feta cheese
basil leaves
lemon juice

Chop the fruit and vegetables and toss in a bowl. Chop the feta into cubes and add to the salad. Sprinkle some basil leaves on top and squeeze a lemon and pour the juice over the top. This makes a lot of salad and would serve at least 4 people, or if you took this to a barbecue and everyone just had a few spoonfuls on their plate, it would serve a big crowd.

This is a lovely change from lettuce-based salads and a good reminder that you can use fruit in salads! It was also very cheap to make - I got a large slice of watermelon from Morrison's for £1 and used half of it in this recipe (costing 50p), the cucumber was 50p from Lidl and I used half (25p), the onion was from a large bag I already had at home and the basil was from the plant on my windowsill. The pepper was one of a pack of three from Lidl costing £1 (so 33p), I can't remember how much the tomatoes were but they couldn't have been more than 50p, and I forgot to buy a lemon so used bottled lemon juice that I already had at home. The feta was the most expensive part, costing £1.99. But I think overall for a cost of around £3.50 this is a big, bright, unusual salad, and would be a great dish to take to a picnic or barbecue (or a Slimming World food tasting!).

This month the ingredient to use for the One Ingredient Challenge is the cucumber, so I am sending this to Laura at How To Cook Good Food who is hosting the challenge this month. The challenge is hosted in alternative months by Nazima at Franglais Kitchen.

I'm also sending this to Four Seasons Food, hosted by Louisa at Chez Foti and Anneli at Delicieux, as their theme this month is barbecues and barbecue side dishes.

This is a relatively cheap salad to make and goes a long way so I am also sharing it with Credit Crunch Munch, hosted by Fish Fingers for Tea, on behalf of Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food 4 All.

I'm also sending this to the Cheese Please blog challenge, hosted by Fromage Homage, as the theme this month is feta.