Watermelon Curry and other Culinary Adventures

Dad went to a music festival over the weekend, and came back with a watermelon and some greengages he found in a hedgerow! Greengages are one of my absolute favourite treats; their season is so short and they're harder to find than other types of plums, but I think they have the best flavour. We used to eat them on the beach in Brittany, getting sandy and sticky with juice all at once. I can't believe he found them just growing in a hedgerow!

Anyway, there was this watermelon, and I had no idea what we were going to do with it. Then I remembered that at Christmas my grandparents gave Pabi Bach and I a book called 'The Modern Vegetarian' by Maria Elia, and that there were a few recipes for watermelon in it. So we chose the 'Watermelon curry with black beans and paneer' - only without the paneer, and with mixed beans and chickpeas instead of black ones.

It's a really delicious recipe - Pops found it a bit hot but the mixture of spicy and sweet is really refreshing and brings out the flavour of the watermelon (and I like it hot - as far as I'm concerned a curry's only good if it makes my nose run!). I know it sounds weird but as you cook it it starts to smell delicious. It's got a sweet edge but looks more like it's cooked with tomatoes than strange pink fruit!

It's a really interesting book actually; the recipes are so original and pieced harmoniously together from many different cuisines. It's a bit adventurous for everyday, but we've tried a few things from it and they've all been delicious. And if you have a sudden surprise watermelon sprung on you there are actually a total of 4 recipes for it. Definitely recommend it, and for everyone who likes their fruit and veg - not just vegetarians.

Anyway we made the curry. It was delish. And in the cooking process we discovered a couple of ways of eating raw watermelon which are delicious.

The first is to sprinkle your watermelon chunk with salt and tuck in. Yum! Try it with pepper too.

The second is to chop up your chillis for the curry. Then plonk a load of watermelon on top of where you've just been cutting chilli. Take a bite. Hot but heavenly!!

Apart from this we also stewed the more squooshy of the greengages. I stoned some more mirabelles and we had these fresh for pudding, along with some of the apple and blackberry mixture from Sunday lunch and then banana and Ambrosia custard. Lush.

Yesterday we had Grandad John (adopted, but nonetheless adored) round for Sunday lunch - roast lamb for the meat eaters, all the veg (including our slightly unusual family tradition of having spicy roast butternut squash and/or aubergine with the usual potatoes, peas, etc) as well as the first of our runner bean crop! And Pabi Bach cooked a delicious Blackberry and apple pie with a pastry lattice top. Everyone tucked in, but I'm afraid that yours truly ate it for a midnight snack before I could take a picture to show you all. But it was beautiful. And delicious.

^ no picture of the pie, so flowers from our garden instead ^^

Anyway, off round to Mum's tomorrow night for more culinary fun... ;)