Using It All (or Almost All): Watermelon Rind in Smoothies

Hi friends,

I took last week off. All the cooking, cleaning and then the celebration of Independence Day wore me down, and then I had a scratchy throat and fatigue for the rest of the week. Nothing else. But I did have to choose between 1) living my life or 2) writing about my life for the week. There was not enough energy to do both for a few days.

One of the things I wanted to share was how we've been using our watermelon rind. For the 4th of July I bought a whole watermelon at 49 cents/lb. That sounds like such a great price for fresh fruit, doesn't it? Well, it is if you eat all (or almost all) the parts of the melon. It always bugs me that so much of a watermelon isn't eaten. All of those rinds tossed onto the compost heap. That's food that is being tossed out!

So, when I serve watermelon to my family, I cut the melon into slices, then cut away the green and white part, cubing the juicy red flesh for eating. I bag up the rinds and keep them in the fridge until I can do something with them, usually within a few days.

bite-sized cubes of watermelon, rind removed and set aside for later

The 4th of July left me with quite a bag of melon rinds. I knew I needed to do something with them.

I still have several jars of pickled watermelon rind to use up, so I quickly decided I would not use this rind in pickles. I thought about making chutney, but I didn't have the rest of the ingredients I would need. I gave serious thought to using the rind in a stir-fry. But what I settled on better fit what my two daughters and I have been having for breakfasts or lunches lately -- smoothies.

from a quarter of a 10-lb watermelon, this is all that I throw away/compost -- the thin green skin

My bag of rinds in the fridge was growing with each passing day, so it was time to get moving. Using a vegetable peeler. I removed the thin green skin from the rind and then cubed the remaining white portion. 

I used my smoothie blender, but I also think a pitcher blender would work for this. I put a couple of  large handfuls of these cubes into the smoothie blender and topped with some water, enough to get the puree going. I pureed the cubes until about as smooth as applesauce. 

watermelon rind puree, ready to blend with bananas, berries, milk or yogurt

I kept this watermelon rind puree in the fridge until we wanted to make smoothies. Watermelon rind has a barely detectable watermelon flavor, making it a good base for a variety of other additions. To add flavor, we've been blending the rind puree with frozen strawberries, blueberries, bananas, milk, soy milk powder, vanilla, peanut butter, and sometimes honey or sugar. 

Watermelon rind is one of those throw away parts of the fruit for most households. Yet it is chock full of nutrients (dietary fiber, potassium, magnesium, vitamin C, vitamin B6, and the amino acid citrulline). This is a double win for me. I'm using almost all of the melon while boosting my nutritional intake.

How about you? Would you drink a smoothie made with watermelon rind? Have you ever tasted watermelon rind pickles or used watermelon rind in stir-fries? Does it ever bug you that so much of the watermelon is wasted if the rind isn't used too? Or do you sometimes think I take this "waste-less" approach too far?

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for the First Full Week of Summer

It's stuffed grape leaves season. The grape leaves are still young and tender
 but large enough to stuff and roll

Our first really warm week of summer -- vegetables and fruits are beginning to produce for us, we've needed slushies and ice cream to cool off, and I'm eating lunch outdoors every day. 

Here's our dinner menu for this past week:

Friday

homemade pepperoni pizza, stuffed grape leaves (rice, garlic, dill, parsley filling), spiced fig-applesauce

Saturday

homemade flour tortillas, refried beans and salsa, carrot sticks, mixed garden greens salad

Sunday

Salisbury steak with mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli and turnip stem pieces

Monday

takeout sub sandwich split between us (daughter had another coupon for a freebie), three bean salad (no kidney beans, so I used pintos with the garbanzos and green beans), more spice fig-applesauce

Tuesday

curried lentils and vegetables over rice with homemade chutney, rhubarb pie for dessert

Wednesday

sliced ham (found when cleaning the freezers) cooked with BBQ sauce (also found in the freezer), garlic, and turnip greens, with rice (found in the freezer) and turnip stem, cranberry, almond, and orange (orange zest found in the freezer) salad

Thursday

toasted corn tortillas (discovered when cleaning out the fridge) topped with refried beans (found in the freezer), cheese and salsa, sugar snap peas (garden), garden salad, fresh strawberries, last of the rhubarb pie

I was finally able to pick a large bowl of strawberries this week. I used some in a lunchtime smoothie (along with other frozen fruit found in the freezer) and we had the rest at dinner.

When I mention using turnip stem pieces, they are what's leftover after I cut the leaves off the stems. Above is a pile of these leaves, all trimmed and ready to chop to cook.

These are the stems that remain. They're from turnip roots that are about 2 inches in diameter, so not terribly stringy.

And then this is what they look like after I chop the stems into 1/2-inch pieces. I use these pieces steamed and mixed with broccoli to stretch the broccoli that I have. I also tried them in a sweet and tangy slaw-like salad on Wednesday. The salad was soooo good. 

No turnips? You can also use the stems from kale leaves chopped and either cooked or raw in a salad. Other stem pieces I used this week were beet stems from the beets I thinned. I used the leaves in a salad, then chopped the stems into 1/2-inch pieces. These beet stem pieces were sprinkled over Thursday's salad. When you're trying to get as much food out of a suburban lot garden, you have to try and eat as much of each vegetable as is edible. Careful, though, some vegetables have plant parts that are not edible, such as tomato leaves.

That's what was on my menu this past week. What interesting foods did you have?