When life hands you a giant watermelon...

Can you tell I went back to work this week? Cue the saddest music you can think of. Let's be honest: this week kicked my ass. Despite taking classes and babysitting part-time, summer was great: I got lots of sleep, I was able to do fun things like read and bake and hang out with friends, I felt energized enough to go to the gym regularly. All of that has dramatically changed in the last week. Womp, womp. And that earthquake? It really rattled my nerves for a few days (I've got issues with natural disasters/things of that magnitude that are out of my control).

Thank god it's the weekend. One week of work has re-established how much I appreciate days of the week that start with "S." The only thing that would improve my weekend is if Irene would step off. I think one natural disaster a week is sufficient?

During my last week of summer, I inherited the world's largest watermelon. Check it out:

It came from my step-mom's dad's (my step-grandfather?) farm. I was visiting my daddy, and he told me I could take the watermelon on the porch. I'm not sure if he was being funny or being nice when he said that, because when I saw the watermelon, my jaw hit the ground. When I tried to get it in my car, my back broke.

Not really. But almost.

When I lugged this bad boy in the house, the obvious question was, "What the hell am I going to do with this 30 pound watermelon?" I spent some time searching Google for easy stuff to do with ginormous watermelons. This is what I ended up with.

Watermelon-mint ice cubes; watermelon sorbet;

watermelon-banana popsicles; cut watermelon for smoothies

These were really yummy and I ended up throwing these

in my green smoothies in the mornings! So good!

Sorbet! Delicious!

Raw Watermelon Ice Cream

I've been considering dabbling in the world of raw vegan (beyond fruits and veggies) for a while now. On my last cookbook binge at the library, I picked up a raw cookbook. I saw several things that piqued my interest, but nothing motivated me enough to actually make it.

I also stalk Addicted to Veggies because she makes some cool and interesting-looking foods over there. She recently posted this recipe for watermelon ice cream, and when the thermometer hit 109 degrees yesterday (heat index was 117, no big deal), I decided to go for it.

This required a bit prep because I had to make the date sweetener and the sour cream. Aside from that, there was relatively little work involved. It spent a couple of hours in the freezer, which wasn't an issue since I needed to prep dinner and move some laundry around.

Soaking the dates and apricots for the sweetner.

Date-apricot sweetener!

I kind of goofed the apple cider vinegar, so I tried my best to rectify the situation, but I'm not sure if that's why the sour cream had a strong flavor, or if it's really supposed to be like that. It didn't thicken up quite like I was expecting, either, but after spending 90 minutes in the refrigerator, I was tired of waiting!

Sour Cream!

The end result was pretty good! The flavor was a little different than I was expecting but that might be due to the apple cider boo-boo. What I love about this recipe is that it's raw, it's sweet (but not loaded with sugar, which is awesome - I've got a wicked sweet tooth, but sometimes, sugar wreaks havoc on my system), it's cool and refreshing! If you're looking for a way to cool down during this heat wave that's terrorizing more than half the country, give this a go!

 Getting ready to go in the freezer.

Mid-freezing process.