Watermelon – The Sweet and the Savory!!!

Tags

appetizer, balsamic, Cocktails, drinks, Goat Cheese, reduction, snack, summer, Watermelon

Nothing tastes better on a hot summer day than ice cold watermelon! I recently got creative with this wonderful fruit and my friend Lisa insisted I post my recipes, so here we go! At our Father’s Day gathering I wanted to serve a creative appetizer, so I drizzled watermelon with a balsamic reduction and sprinkled it with some super creamy goat cheese. Yummm! You get the sweet of the watermelon with the savory of the balsamic and creaminess of the cheese.

Those watermelons are so big that I always seem to end up with some leftover. For some reason it dawned on me to blend up my leftover melon with a little sugar to make a type of nectar that could be used to make a variety of drinks. It could be mixed with sparkling water for a nice refresher or with a little rum or vodka for cooling cocktail! I hope these recipes help to cool down your summer a bit!!!

Balsamic Watermelon With Goat Cheese

Ingredients

1/2 Seedless Watermelon

1/2 cup good quality Balsamic Vinegar

2 tbsp Sugar

1/2 cup Crumbled Goat Cheese (or Feta Cheese for a more pungeant flavor)

In a small saucepan, whisk together vinegar and sugar. Cook over medium heat until reduced by about half and syrupy.  This will take about 5 minutes. After cooking, chill in refrigerator. Cut watermelon into square shaped bite size pieces.  Round shapes don’t work as well for capturing the cheese in your bites. Arrange melon on a plate and drizzle with chilled balsamic reduction and then sprinkle with crumbled cheese. Serve and enjoy!

Watermelon Drinks

1/2 Seedless Watermelon

1/4 – 1/3 cup sugar

You could use a blender or an immersion blender to combine your chunks of watermelon and sugar to make your necter.

Watermelon Margarita – Blend necter, ice, margarita mix or lime juice and tequila.

Watermelon Refresher – Mix necter, lime juice and sparkling water.

Watermelon Mojito – Mix necter, lime juice, mottled mint and rum.

Enjoy!

Blood Orange Martini – Beautiful and Delicious Cocktail

Tags

blood orange, Cocktails, Cooking, Drink, Food, Martini, recipe, vodka

  

Last week, we received this fruit in our organic produce shipment. We weren’t sure what they were until we cut into them and discovered the most beautiful red citrus fruit inside, blood oranges!!!! Then we tasted them! O-M-G!!! These things were delicious!!! We had never had them before, but we’ll sure be having them again! We decided they would be fabulous in a drink and my husband had been craving a martini, as we hadn’t had the in a long time. So we decided to use the juice from the blood oranges and what a fabulous drink it made!!!

You can get creative with the juice and liquors you use. We just used what we had on hand and this was delicious!!!

Blood Orange Martini

Juice of 1 blood orange

Splash of Cran-pomegranate juice

Splash of Raspberry-peach Grand Marnier

2 oz Vodka

Fill your martini shaker with ice and add all ingredients. Shake vigorously and strain into a glass. Garnish as you wish. We happen to have kiwi on hand and it added a fabulous, colorful touch!

Enjoy!