Heads up: watermelon is my very favorite summer fruit.
I can. not. get enough of it. The good news is that the hubs' mother knows this about me and every time we visit her in the summer she sends a local watermelon back. (The visits to the hubs' hometown of Paris (not France) may or may not increase drastically in the summer). All that to say, I have several watermelon posts planned for the summer so get excited! The debut watermelon recipe for Snacks and Desserts is this deliciousness.
I first tried this recipe first, with great success, at a recent FNHH.* As soon as my friend and I tried this libation, we knew it was a keeper. The following week we had it again. And I'm pretty sure we'll have it again this weekend. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's on the regular FNHH summer rotation. And by rotation, I mean it's the only drink we'll consume at our summer FNHHs. Obvs.
*What's FNHH, you ask? Well my friend and I often abbreviate our words (and yes, I have, in fact, abbreviated words since I was in elementary school, so if People magazine (or whatever magazine it was) calls abbrevs a trend of 2012, I guess that means I am obviously a trendsetter). Somewhere along the way, these abbrevs my friend and I are so fond of turned into initials instead of short words. It's a pretty fun, if slightly stressful, game. You should try it. In any case, we often have Friday night happy hours at my house with some of our neighbors. So natch our Friday night happy hour turned into FNHH. Y'all should join us. The more the merrier!
Do you have a favorite summer cocktail or frozen beverage? Do tell!
Ingredients
2 1/4 cups frozen watermelon cubes
1/2 cup water
2 Tbsp honey
1 large lemon, squeezed (lime juice also works very well: use 2 limes)
1 fresh banana
optional: tequila (or more water or fruit juice)
Directions
Combine all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into a glass (or drink directly from the blender -- I won't judge) and enjoy.
The hubs and I had a friend in town this past weekend, and I had already planned to spend the day in the kitchen making several recipes I've been wanting to try. So my friend was gracious enough to give me her honest opinion about whether or not the respective recipes were blog worthy. This one, without a doubt, passed the test. After going on and on about how good it was, she said "Oh shoot, I should have said something really clever or funny so I could get a shout out on the blog." I told her that was enough to merit a shout out. Especially because she was, in fact, going on and on.
Lest you think my friend Ann was saying recipes were good just so she could get a shout out on the blog, she did feel free to tell me some recipes weren't blog worthy. Like the cauliflower pizza crust I tried. (We ended up agreeing it might be good for something besides pizza crust but it wasn't good enough as is). More to come on that recipe if I get around to experimenting. In the meantime, y'all should make this recipe sooner than later. We had to FORCE ourselves to stop eating these delicious bite sized pieces of pineapple. Wrapped in bacon. Thank goodness the hubs wasn't far off and he was more than willing to eat to his heart's content. My philosophy: the more the eats, the less I eat. Win win.
Let's be honest, people. Bacon is one of the best foods. Ever. I have a friend who had sugar coated bacon at her wedding reception. It was ridiculous good. This recipe isn't quite the same, but the way the sweet from the pineapple mixes with the savory from the bacon is pure genius.
Ingredients
Fresh pineapple, chopped into bite-sized pieces
Bacon
Honey
Directions
Preheat oven to 375.
Wrap a wire cooling rack with aluminum foil and place on top of a baking sheet.
Heat honey over low heat just to get a runnier, less sticky, consistency. Cut each slice of bacon in half and dredge in the honey. Run your index finger and thumb down the bacon to remove any excess honey. (By the time I finished this step, there wasn't much honey left on the bacon, and I'll probably even leave it out completely next time I make these because the pineapple is sweet enough on its own).
Wrap half a piece of bacon around a piece of pineapple and secure with a toothpick. Place each piece of bacon-wrapped pineapple on the foil-lined baking pan.
Bake for about 25 minutes or until the bacon looks brown and crispy. You can turn the oven to broil for the last few minutes to get them really crisp.
Remove from oven. Let cool slightly. And enjoy.
The name of this recipe is kind of a mouthful. Which makes sense because I want my mouth full of these delicious little suckers. Chocolate + peanut butter + banana = Pure deliciousness.
When we were little, my mother would sometimes make bananas and peanut butter for us. Well, this is like bananas and peanut butter on steroids. Dark chocolate steroids. Dark chocolate makes everything better. Everything. And since my mother used to make this recipe (sans chocolate) for our breakfast it makes me feel like leg eating two or three of these for breakfast, which I might or might not have done yesterday. Turns out, eating these banana bites with a cup of coffee might make them even better.
The original recipe recommends eating these banana bites frozen, but I found that frozen bananas were harder to chew than I like. So I stuck mine in the refrigerator after they were frozen. Cold, but not frozen, bananas with peanut butter and chocolate is the Mary Poppins of bite-sized treats.
Ingredients
2 large bananas
1/4 cup all-natural peanut butter (or nut butter of your choice)
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips or dark chocolate bar, chopped
2 tbsp - 1/4 cup milk (preferably raw)
Directions
Line a cookie sheet with waxed paper. Slice bananas into slices about 1/2–3/4 inch thick. Spread a dollop of nut butter on top of each one.
In a small saucepan, combine the chocolate and milk (less is more so start with less and add as needed) and melt until they can be stirred together. You want a dippable, not spreadable, consistency. Add a splash more milk if necessary.
Dip the banana chunks into the melted chocolate. Place chocolate coated bananas on the prepared sheet and place in freezer until completely frozen (3–5 hours).
Remove frozen banana chunks from the sheet and store in an air-tight container in the refrigerator (or freezer if you prefer frozen).
