Mint is one of many herbs we are growing on the playgrounds of MKCCC. Its easy, almost too easy, to grow. There are lots of ways to play with mint, especially in the summer time. An herbalist will tell you that mint has special cooling properties, it actually opens your pores to help cool you off. Watermelon is also a cooling food, so mint and watermelon make for a great combination on a hot summer day.
The summer campers made this minty watermelon slushie and offered free samples outside to parents, staff and CSA members at the end of the day on Wednesday. It is a simple and delicious recipe that is easy to make. Here’s how we did it.
Preparing the watermelon chunks for freezing.
The day before:
We took some seedless watermelons, removed the rind and cut the juicy red fruit into cubes, and some other shapes. Put all of those chunks into a zip lock bag and into the freezer for overnight.
The next day:
We took our ziplock bags of frozen watermelon, a bunch of freshly cut sprigs of mint, a little bit of water and our new blender and set up a slushie stand out at the front entrance.
Frozen watermelon chunks in our blender.
We learned quickly that the best way to puree the frozen watermelon chunks was to start with a bit of water and a few mint leaves before tossing in too many chunks.
Once you’ve got the right ratio of loose watermelon slush whirling around, then you can add a few more chunks and it will continue to blend without getting stuck!
Additional sugar wasn’t needed. The watermelon had the perfect amount of sweetness and the mint- just a bit, not too much- made it light and refreshing.
Watermelon mint slushie happy hour