Watermelon Salsa

Herb Shop porch, looking out on one part of the garden.

These two areas, above, are in and near the garden look and wonderfully cool, don't they? But like much of the U.S. today, it's sweltering hot. We've been above 100 degrees F. most of this week. Fireworks displays in most towns are cancelled due to fire dangers. It's bleak, pastures and lawns are just crispy sticks, ponds are dry. We're watering the garden here on a daily basis, trying to keep the plants alive and growing.

Here's hopefully a small bit of inspiration, a half watermelon filled with watermelon salsa. I made it to take to a picnic at our friends' house this evening. You might like to make this over the Independence Day holidays, too. Yes, it will look better surrounded with chips and other food, but I took the photo before I left for the party.

The flavors of sweet watermelon, crispy peppers, peaches and avocados go well together!

I'd like to say this recipe is from my book, Sensational Salsas from Apple to Zucchini, and I do have a really good watermelon salsa recipe there, but this one was inspired by the Avocado Association newsletter this week. I had to tinker with their recipe a bit to suit my tastes, so here's my revised recipe:

Watermelon, Peach and Avocado Salsa

1 half seedless watermelon, innards chopped and drained
2 whole avocados, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 peaches, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 small green bell pepper, chopped
1 small red bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeds and stem removed, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
Juice of 2 limes
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix and chill, then fill the scooped-out watermelon and take to the party with chips.

Muscadines growing on gazebo post.

The muscadines are ripe this week on the gazebo (some of the other varieties aren't ready yet). If you aren't familiar with muscadines, they're a Southern variety of grapes. Thirty three years ago when I moved here, our weather wouldn't have allowed muscadines to grow, but in that period of time, we have warmer winters and such plants thrive here. Muscadines do better in the Ozarks than many other grapes simply because they don't suffer from many of the grape diseases, fungus and the like. I never have to spray muscadines - I always had to spray regular grapes, and I like the flavor of these better. Muscadines have a lot more sugar, some varieties taste like a burst of grape jelly in your mouth!

Muscadines.

If you'd like more salsa recipes to help you keep cool in this miserable heat, order my book, Sensational Salsas. It's full of my recipes for such things as Banana Salsa (it's a favorite in my salsa workshops!), Watermelon Salsa with Black Pepper, Cantaloupe Salsa and many, many more - yes, even one for Zucchini!

The Salsa book is on sale this month when you buy Easy Dips Using Herbs, too. Here's the link to my website.

Stay out of the heat if you can, drink plenty of liquids, move slow and be safe. Happy gardening!