Really Big Melons

The Casey County cantelopes at the market were the biggest melons I've seen in quite some time.  No pun intended.  They were huge.

We bought one and lugged it home in a seperate bag to keep it from squashing the rest of our tender vegetable stash.  Once home, I peeled, sliced, and filled an entire punch bowl with the very ripe orange jewels.  We ate some while it was still warm and then rearranged the refrigerator to accomodate the bowl.

Although we have been nibbling on it all week, we have hardy made a dent in the pile of cantelope bits.

Needing some space in the refrigerator for other things and inspired by Mark Bittman http://www.markbittman.com/ on an episode of the Today Show, I decided to make melon soup.

It was stupidly easy.  Embarassing, even.  But, worth every bit of non-trouble.  The hardest part was dragging the blender out from its hiding place in the cabinet.

I filled the blender almost to the top with the cut up cantelope, added  the juice from 1/2 lemon, a dash of salt, a pinch of sugar (which it did not need), a 1/4 cup of organic pure apple juice, and pureed the mixture on high for a few minutes.  The cats scattered from the intense squealing noise of our out-dated  college frozen margarita-making blender.

That was it. A gratuitous  sweet garnish of basil finished it off.  The melon was amazingly sweet, juicy, and refreashing.  So cooling  on a hot summer day.  A perfect amuse bouche.

 

What's up with those big Casey County Melons?  I'm not sure I could handle a pair of them. One was definitely enough.