Watermelon Times

This weekend I had at my watermelon. This is a baby watermelon:



However, it was still about four or five pounds of watermelon... a lot more than I care to just eat as melon. So I tried a few recipes inspired by Herbivoracious. I took a trip to Penny to get parsley and these lemons.



One idea I got from the food blogs was to try watermelon where you'd normally have tomato. I saw recipes for watermelon gazpacho and watermelon and avocado salad/ceviche. Due to my limited fresh herb selection at Penny and lack of a blender, I wasn't quite going to get either of these options to work out properly. Hence the plans for watermelon tabbouleh, with that parsley and lemon.



Very simple! Diced watermelon, finely diced red onion, hand-torn parsley, and lemon juice.



I gave it a little time to meld flavors, and served it over quinoa cooked with veggie broth. For something with six total ingredients, it had a pretty exciting flavor. (And you know how I usually cook... I usually throw in a little bit of everything, especially the spices!)

While I was letting the tabbouleh sit, I tried frying the watermelon as suggested by Herbivoracious. I don't think I achieved the searing that he did. Still, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the fried watermelon. It had a little bit of caramelization and a little bit of the general cooked fruit taste. The olive oil and sat gave it a savory flavor. I was almost surprised by how much salt I added when adding to taste, especially when I didn't add any salt to the salad part of the tabbouleh, which tasted fine even without the salt from the broth used with the quinoa.



I actually would make both of these things again. The hard part is cutting up and seeding the watermelon, not the dicing or frying, and eating a whole watermelon will always be a challenge... I know I said this wasn't going to turn into a recipe blog, but just bear with me!