Frozen Watermelon

Even though I hate to admit it - summer is nearly over and Fall is upon us.  Don't get me wrong, I love Fall but I'm always a little sad to let go of the long, leisurely days of summer.  This was a particularly great summer - in so many ways.

I grew LOTS of watermelon in my garden this summer.  It was a lot of fun to watch them grow into gigantic fruit.   I think we all ate our weight in watermelon this summer and we still had more watermelon than we knew what to do with.  I had no choice but to freeze some of the watermelon because we just couldn't eat it fast enough.  I cut it into cubes, blended it, put it in the freezer and saved it for another day.  These recipes would work for anyone who has an abundance of watermelon.  In most cases, you pay the same price for a small watermelon as you do for a huge one.  Why not get a big watermelon, eat what you can and freeze the rest for later?

I poured half of the the pureed watermelon into a Tupperware container to freeze.

I poured the other half of my watermelon puree into an ice cube tray.  (I also added a mint leaf to the top of each watermelon cube before I put it in the freezer.)

The next day I pulled the frozen watermelon out of the freezer for some sweet treats.  I let the watermelon in the Tupperware sit on the counter for about 15 minutes while I made the watermelon coolers.

I popped the cubes out of the tray and into a glass and then poured sparkling water over the watermelon ice cubes.   The mixture foamed quite a bit at first.  (The mint on the top of the cubes kind of looked like giant watermelon seeds.)

The watermelon coolers were refreshing.  I think next time, I'll try adding fruit juice instead of sparkling water to the frozen watermelon cubes to give it a little different consistency. 

After about 15 minutes, I used a fork to scrape the frozen watermelon in the Tupperware container into a slushy consistency. 

The watermelon slushy was really good - refreshing and simple yet still satisfied my over active sweet tooth.  Ben LOVED the watermelon slushy too.  As summer draws to an end, you might want to store some watermelon in your freezer so you can pull it out and enjoy a little of taste of summer in the middle of winter. 

Ciao!