Watermelon: Granita & Popsicles!

Hellooooo! 

I just got back from an incredibly delicious dinner with my mom and Brian at Toro in the South End.  I haven’t been since last year and my mom and I were craving it…specifically the corn on the cob and paella. 

Anyways…just had to mention that.  Other than that it has been a pretty low key weekend.  My mom has been travelling a lot for work so it was nice to spend some time with her.  It’s also been pretty toasty around here although I can’t complain…it’s summer, and this is summer weather. Although I really wish we had a pool, or a least a close friend with one ;)

Watermelon!

I bought a big whole watermelon earlier this week because I had a few people over on the 4th, but we never got around to eating it. 

I decided to hack away at it so we could eat it during this week.  

SO.MUCH.MELON.  It filled that bowl, and that’s a pretty large mixing bowl…about 12” diameter.  I don’t think the 2 of us could eat it all this week without it either going bad or us getting sick of it so I decided to use about less than 1/2 of it to make some frosty treats!

I saw this recipe on the Whole Foods website earlier in the week: Watermelon Granita

Perfect!

I made about 1/2 batch loosely following the recipe:

• 4 cups watermelon, put into blender
• blend until smooth
• add juice & zest from 1/2 lime
• 1 – 2 tsp honey (more or less if you like)
• blend again
• pour into a glass baking dish (mine was 11” x 7”)
• Place in freezer
• I stirred with a fork every 30min for about 2 hours (then left for dinner), when I came home it was frozen and time to scrape up with a fork!

Until it’s all icy

So cool and refreshing!!  This was so easy I’d love to try it with other flavors.  The original recipe said to top with mint or basil which I think either would be delicious.

I think I want to try Espresso Granita next…we had some in Rome on our honeymoon….it was sweet espresso granita topped with freshly whipped (unsweetened) cream…amazing.      

This is perfect hot weather food.   

Next!

Using the same ingredients, I put more watermelon chunks in the blender, the juice and zest from the other half of the lime and blended again.

This time I ran the mixture through a fine mesh sieve:

And filled popsicle molds with the remaining strained watermelon juice!

I bought those popsicle molds for less than $10 at Bed Beth and Beyond and have been dying to try them out. 

These will also come in handy on these hot days!

Don’t worry, we still have a GIANT container of fresh watermelon to eat this week ;)

sidenote: the pops and granita are paleo friendly!  The use of honey is up to you :)

You could also make some amazing cocktails with fresh watermelon puree…mojitos, margaritas… the possibilities are endless.  I also plan to enjoy some watermelon + feta this week too! 

What’s your favorite way to use up extra watermelon??