Whether you call this a sno-cone or a granita depends on who’s eating it.
I don’t know about you, but my interest in a watermelon generally lasts until about halfway through it. Especially if it’s big, and especially if it’s woody and pulpy, in which case I vow to return it to the store, but never do.
In the past I’ve made watermelon lemonade, which is just fine. I always intend to make watermelon margaritas, but have yet to. This summer, however, I discovered that if you puree a watermelon (chunk it and blitz in the food processor – because it’s mostly water, it pulverizes effortlessly) and freeze it, you can scrape it with a fork to make pure-fruit watermelon sno-cones; known among fancy-food eaters as granitas.
Honestly, nothing could be easier than a granita. Freeze fruit puree, or fruit juice, scrape it with a fork so that you get a sort of crystalline snow, and voila. In midwinter, I have been known to leave half a latte in the car, then scrape it out and call it espresso granita.
I made a batch with cherries and watermelon, and a batch with a splash of prosecco. (This version would be granita, obviously, rather than sno-cone.) Not many recipes are so easily played with. Just remember this one rule: if it freezes, you can make a granita out of it.
But watermelon, straight up, makes a mighty fine sno-cone, without any need for day-glo syrup.
We’ve spent more time than usual at the dog park this week, having doubled the quantity of dog in our house by taking in a stunning Rhodesian ridgeback, truly a supermodel among dogs. To say her dad is a young, outdoorsy type is a colossal understatement, so as Comox is accustomed to spending her weekends on backcountry ski trips, mountain biking, hiking/rock climbing and the like, she’s ripped. She’s Wonder Woman to Lou’s Fred Flinstone. Quite the dominatrix, too. They are the best of pals.
I had been noticing some sort of berry growing in abundance up and down every path, and over the past week they have been turning a more alluring shade of wine-purple, hanging all lusty and low in clusters, like teeny grapes with a little more breathing room.
Every time I stopped to examine them and wonder aloud what they might be, Mike would put his head down and walk faster.
A. brought tomatoes from her in-laws’ garden in BC. Mom brought a loaf of crusty sourdough. There was bacon in the freezer. We couldn’t rightly not have bacon and tomato sandwiches for dinner.
(Mike and I shared this – it’s enormous – I’m not a total glutton. Well, maybe a little bit.)
Sorry to have held out on you for so long – I’m finally going to fess up about that mystery trip to Legal, Alberta. I went to see the makers of this stuff I’ve been spreading on my toast for the past couple weeks – NoNuts Golden Peabutter – it’s just like peanut butter, but made out of roasted golden peas. Nut free!
I had heard of it awhile ago, but (to be right up front about it) wasn’t too hip on trying the stuff. Although I love nut butters, I’ve never been sold on hemp butter, regular (green) pea butter and the like. I am a peanut butter fan. But this stuff – it works. And now that kids are going back to school, they likely won’t be able to bring peanut products with them regardless of whether or not they have allergies, for the safety of those who do.
W asked for noodles and meatballs for dinner, and he got it. Brown rice noodles, which of course are made with brown rice rather than white flour, but which have the same mouthfeel as regular white pasta; none of the tweediness of whole wheat pasta. I like it. (When I was a kid, I actually avoided going to a certain family’s house for dinner because they served whole wheat spaghetti, and I, obsessed with the idea of Kraft Dinner, thought it was just too weird.)
But I still had a salty peanut bar for dinner.
This, dear friends, is what my life amounts to these days. The song has crawled into my ear and embedded itself on my brainstem. I cannot rid myself of it. Fortunately, W sounds cute when he sings it, making up words that sound sort of like “catches thieves just like flies”.
