(Yellow) Watermelon Salad with Bleu Cheese, Pancetta and Basil for Secret Recipe Club

Do not adjust your screen. Yes, that is a yellow watermelon. There are, in fact, over 1200 varieties of watermelon, and the flesh can be red, orange, yellow or white. This one, a Yellow Crimson, has a mildly sweeter taste than the more common red type. It almost has a honey flavor to it, so we thought it would be great to do something unusual with it. 

Luckily, it's Secret Recipe Club reveal day, and we were assigned Eliot's Eats, a food/travel/adventure blog with an ambitiously wide variety of posts and even more recipes. We have been drooling over this plethora of recipes by anonymous author "Eliot" (after T.S. Eliot) for several days now and since we had this beautiful watermelon on hand, decided on Watermelon Salad with Bleu Cheese, Pancetta and Basil. We decided that we were going to follow the recipe to the letter after realizing how much we have in common with "Eliot."

1. We are both near-middle-aged couples (although Amy is loathe to admit that)

2. "Eliot" works at a high school (as do the two of us), and her husband works in technology (Chris's hobby/job).

3. We are both cat people.

4. We both love to travel, cook, eat, patronize local restaurants and businesses, eat local and visit farmers markets.

5. And we both blog about it all.

So there it is. We are practically the same people, so why would we change the recipe? And "Eliot" - glad SRC gave us a chance to catch up. We've added you to our blog hop and will be checking in more often! 

Fresh, juicy, refreshing, sweet, tangy, crunchy, creamy, luscious peppery perfection. 

Watermelon Salad with Bleu Cheese, Pancetta and Basil

recipe from Eliot's Eats

Ingredients:

8 ounces pancetta, diced

1 1/2 cups cubed watermelon

2 tablespoons crumbled bleu cheese

1/8 cup basil, chiffonade

drizzle of olive oil

drizzle balsamic vinegar

freshly ground black pepper

Cook pancetta until crisp; drain on paper towels. Arrange watermelon on a chilled plate. Top with pancetta, bleu cheese and basil. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic, season to taste with pepper.

Sorbetto al Melone

It seems to us that we promised you a recipe about a week ago and we haven't followed through. We're sorry...but we are teachers on summer vacation! And we are about to head to New Orleans, NOLA, the Crescent City, the Big Easy, for two weeks! Which means you probably won't be hearing much from us. For now, here's that recipe we promised - a cool, refreshing, delightful sorbet you can make using your favorite type of melon. We've tried it with watermelon (pictured above) (fantastic) and cantaloupe (our favorite sorbetto ever!). Anyone up for some honeydew?

Sorbetto al Melone, or Melon Sorbet

slightly adapted from Gelato by Adriano di Petrillo

Cooks' Note: Why caster sugar? It dissolves much more easily than granulated sugar so your sorbet isn't gritty.

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cup cold water, divided

juice of 1/2 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)

1 cup caster or superfine sugar (see cooks' note), divided

14 ounces melon, peeled, deseeded and chopped

In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat 2/3 cup water until just boiling. Remove from heat and add the lemon juice and 3/4 cup of the sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves; set aside and allow to cool. Place chopped melon, remaining 1/4 cup sugar and remaining 2/3 cup water in a food processor and puree. Combine sugar/lemon syrup and melon puree together and stir. Pour mixture into ice cream maker and proceed with manufacturer's instructions. Serve immediately or store in airtight container in freezer up to a week.

Cocktail Hour: Melonshine

We're on somewhat of a moonshine kick lately, now that we're on vacation. Maybe it's because the moonshine we're using is so amazingly smooth and mixable. So here's our latest concoction, created just this afternoon while we were making Watermelon Sorbetto (recipe coming soon). It's quite yummy, and frankly, the perfect backyard barbecue beverage! Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Melonshine

Ingredients:

2 cups watermelon, chopped finely

1 tablespoon boxwood basil leaves (regular basil will work fine)

1 cup Onyx Moonshine

Mix all ingredients in a large pitcher and set aside for an hour, stirring a couple of times to blend. Strain mixture through a fine mesh sieve into six rocks glasses filled with ice. To serve additional drinks, simply add moonshine to pitcher, stir, sieve and pour. Drink responsibly.