One of my favorite things about summer is watermelon. My dad loves the yellow-meated kind and black diamonds are a favorite of mine when I can find them, but give me a really good plain ol' striped one at room temperature with a freshly filled salt shaker and I'm in summertime heaven.
It's been a really good summer for watermelon. In fact, we had one a few weeks ago that we're still talking about as "The Best Watermelon I've Ever Eaten" -- sweet, juicy, red, perfect texture. And texture is important. If it isn't ripe enough the texture is hard and sour. Too ripe, and it's mush. Yucky mush.
Well, I bought one this week from a roadside stand that was "guaranteed." It was ripe, alright, overripe and, you guessed it, mushy. The flavor was right, but not the texture. I was sorely disappointed. I hated to waste it, though, so what to do?
For some reason toward the end of the first week of school lots of folks started talking about margaritas. After the first dozen or so people mentioned wanting, nay needing, a margarita soon, I thought, "Hey, what about a watermelon margarita?" I tweaked an internet recipe and I will never complain about an overripe melon again!!
Here's my recipe:
Stuff your blender with seeded very ripe watermelon.
Puree.
Add 4 oz. tequila
2 oz. Cointreau
1 oz. lime juice
a generous handful of ice cubes.
Puree again.
Put in the freezer to chill
Rim a glass with watermelon juice and margarita salt.
Pour in the chilled watermelon margarita and enjoy!!
