Watermelon Frozen Yogurt (No Ice Cream Maker Required!)

OK, stay with me: watermelon + ice cream. It's a winner, but you're skeptical. I get it. I've been there.

Cookout, a renowned milkshake and burger place in North Carolina, serves a watermelon milkshake every July. When I first saw it advertised, I thought there's no way that can be good. But oh was I wrong. I finally tried it and it was amazing. So refreshing!

Since I made coffee frozen yogurt awhile ago, I wanted to try another kind. Watermelon frozen yogurt for everyone!

Notes: I had watermelon juice that I used for this recipe. When I buy watermelon, I cut it out of the rind into small pieces. It makes it easier to eat, but of course that means I have juice and pulp left in the bottom of the rind. So, I saved the juice and the pulp for this recipe.

If you don't cut your watermelon this way, just reserve some pieces and chop them up really small until you have a little over a cup. You have to blend the yogurt and watermelon anyway, so it will become juice when you blend it. Just be sure you strain any seeds out before you mix it with the yogurt.

A little bit of fresh mint in here might be nice if you're feeling fancy.

I use a glass loaf pan for my freezer-safe dish. It works well. The handles help when you need something to help you hold the dish in place while you stir.

The only downside of this recipe is that it takes constant attention for 2-3 hours. But on a lazy weekend day when you're hanging out in the house anyway, you can manage. Other than that, it's super easy.

Store the yogurt uncovered in your freezer.

Ingredients:
2 cups vanilla Greek yogurt
1 cup sugar
1 cup watermelon juice

Directions:

Blend juice, sugar, and yogurt together either with a blender or with an immersion blender. Pour the mixture into a freezer-safe dish.

Freeze for 2-3 hours. Every 30 minutes, whisk or stir the mixture to break up large ice crystals. Starting out with a whisk will work well, but you'll need to switch to something sturdy as it starts to freeze.

Once the mixture has the consistency of ice cream, scoop and serve. Enjoy this refreshing (and unexpected) combo!

Watermelon Granita

It's been awhile, eh? I wish I could tell you that I had a great reason for not posting any new recipes, like a fabulous vacation or something like that. Not so much. I was out of commission for a week with viral colitis. Not fun! I'm healing now (slower than I'd like) and feeling better everyday.

I made this recipe before I got sick. We had been invited to a cook out and asked to bring fruit as a side dish. I bought a watermelon. Because I'm an anal person who loves to cook, I couldn't just slice the watermelon and put it on a platter -- not good enough! I decided to use a melon baller to scoop out bite-sized pieces of watermelon. I scooped out all the flesh and then placed the balls back in the empty rind. Neat, huh? It looked nice.

Trouble was, I was left with two things: extra watermelon juice and little strips of watermelon flesh that I scraped out of the rind. Watermelon leftovers = watermelon granita!

Notes: This recipe helped me out with the process. When I made this recipe, I was sans blender (not any more, stay tuned for the next recipe!). Thus my granita was chunkier than normal granitas. I didn't care; frozen watermelon is delicious.

If you wanted to make more, you could use more watermelon flesh.

This is so easy, but it does take time to make. It's a great summer time dessert.

Ingredients:
The juice and leftover flesh from 1 watermelon
2 tablespoons of sugar

Directions:

Add the watermelon flesh and juice to a 9 x 9 glass baking dish. Using a fork or your hands, break the flesh into small pieces and mix it well with the juice. Add the sugar.

Freeze for two hours. After two hours, use a fork to break up the mixture so that it's fluffy like shaved ice. Put it back in the freezer for two more hours and then fluff it again. Repeat the process until the whole mixture is evenly frozen.

Scoop out and enjoy ice cold deliciousness!