Watermelon Granita. Got a Blender or Food Processor? You can Make This Easy.

 Since it's been in the 100s up here in Sonoma this last week with 105 expected for Labor Day..it's not exactly cooking weather. So I decided to bring back an Oldie But Goodie which is a perfect cooling dish for any holiday festivities you may have planned. I made this just last week for the CocoaPlanet gang and it was such a hit I bought another watermelon to make one for the gang at home.....so return with me now to the days of yesteryear...back back to 2012 and Watermelon Granita.


This all started when I bought a watermelon for a Labor Day Barbeque at our house. I'd had so much fun making Watermelon Mousse that I decided what this house needs is more watermelon!! I was catching the tail end of the season here for good local watermelon but I secured one and decided that I'd make the watermelon mousse again for our Labor Day guests, but then I got lazy, one thing led to another and I decided on my crowdpleasereverybodysfiveagain desert for holiday cook outs, homemade vanilla ice cream and boxes of various types of cones. Make your own ice cream cone with sprinkles or... whatever. It always works and it's always fun to see people revert, and yet I had this watermelon just sitting there taking up space in the fridge. What to do?

   I decided to juice it. A bunch of friends have recently gotten themselves fancy juicers and blenders but I've still got my trusty old Oster. No fancy bells and whistles but it works. I chunked the watermelon into the blender and  juiced it. I mixed it with some iced green tea, fizzy water, a dash of lime juice and chia seeds. I figured that everybody would be hitting the beer and I'd be the only one drinking my watermelon concoction. Boy was I wrong. I barely got any. They liked it that much. I did what any other normal person would do. I bought more watermelon and juiced it. So there I was with a pitcher full of watermelon juice and nowhere to go. There had to be something else I could do with this stuff. Something like say.....granita?

   Granita, the perfect lazy individuals dessert. Pour stuff in the freezer and stir it with a fork every now and then. It does not get very much easier than that. Want this? Grab your watermelons and you can be enjoying this within a couple of hours.

Watermelon Granita

Here's What You Need:

1 seedless watermelon
a 13 x 12 glass baking dish..or smaller if you wish
1 Tbs of sugar

Here's What To Do:

Chunk the watermelon and blend it to juice in a blender or food processor.
Pour it into the baking dish.
Stir in 1 Tbs of sugar. I do this because I want to  keep the juice from freezing into a solid mass and sugar helps prevent that.
Rake the mixture with a fork after 30  minutes breaking the juice up into icy crystals. Keep doing this at 30 minute intervals for about 2 hours or until it's icy enough to scoop into a bowl.

   While I was waiting for my juice to freeze, I was wondering just what I could do to zip things up a bit. I figured that a lot of people (okay my family) has always sprinkled their watermelon with salt. But I didn't just want any salt. How about smoked salt? How about full on barbeque mesquite smoked salt?? Why not? Couldn't hurt. So I smoked some salt in a stove top smoker. It took 20 minutes.

 
   Light, refreshing, and above all easy, I dished up the combo of watermelon granita with a smokey dash of mesquite. Did it work? Yeah, it worked. For real.  More cool dishes for hot weather coming...meanwhile follow along on Twitter @kathygori

The Cure For Earthquake Weather

That's what my grandma called it, it's what my mom called it and it's creeping me out. ...big time. It's hot out, there is not a breath of air stirring. The deer are coming down from the hill looking for something to eat or drink and there's a new squirrel I haven't met before. His ears are too big and he's giving me the hairy eyeball. I can't explain it but I feel about him the way I usually feel about clowns.
It's hot out there, 7 pm and still close to 100 degrees. I'm working and I need something cool,and frosty. I can't stop thinking about that organic green tea/watermelon juice Arnold Palmer type thingy I had this week at the brilliant Umami Burger in LA.
So, ok. I tore the city apart looking for sweet basil seeds to put in my drink. These seeds are used in Ayervedic medicine and have many healing properties. That's a bonus for me because I loved the fact that they looked like little tadpoles swimming around in my drink. I had to have them. My work meeting was sandwiched between a search for sweet basil seeds and corn smut in every corner of LA. I lived in that city for years and I was positive I'd find both items. No. Such. Luck.
Maybe I should have gone to Monterey Park, but I didn't ok..so now I'm going to have to send away for a packet of sweet basil seeds and the postage is gonna cost me more than what I'm buying. I hate when that happens. As for the corn smut, forget it. I'm not buying a can of that unless I can eyeball it. So, the search goes on.
But meanwhile, back to this frosty cool drink. Here's how it went down.

I happened to have a seedless watermelon in the fridge, and of course powdered Japanese green tea. So I made about three glasses of the iced tea. Tossed a hunk of watermelon in the blender with a dash of water to bring it to the proper consistency...mixed them up in a tall pitcher and voila! Instant Umami..almost...or at least it'll have to do until I go to LA again or they open a Umami Burger in Sonoma.If I'd had those seeds I'd have popped them in at the last minute...but I didn't.
So, now I'm ready for whatever the weather brings, I've fastened my seat belt and I'm in for a frosty evening.
As I'm thinking here, this would most likely work with any sort of melon you might have lying around the house. Just sayin'.