Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Smoothie Adventures, Horned Melon

Here's what today's breakfast looked like as it was being assembled:


Horned melon:  SCARY FRUIT! It looks obscene and rather frightening when you slice into it.  Here's a close-up:

I was also very concerned when I saw all of the seeds.  And even more so when the smell hit me.  If you LOVE cucumber, you'd love the smell of this fruit.  Me, I hate cucumber.  I'm using the word "Hate" here.  I REALLY don't like the stuff.  The smell makes me a little nauseous, the texture makes me feel like vomiting.  And the taste... I do not find it pleasing.  (I love pickles and zucchini though...)

This thing smells strongly of cucumber.  I gamely pressed on, though (and decided if I just couldn't ingest the end result, I'd hit a drive-thru on my way out of town).  (Yes, I had a backup plan, and it was a drive-thru.)

At this point, I'm fairly certain this is going to be an unmitigated disaster, so I Googled a "real" recipe for a Horned Melon Smoothie (really this is so I have someone to blame when this is inedible and I put it down the garbage disposal).  Google says those seeds are edible, so I squeezed one half of the melon until all the jelly-like stuff and most of the seeds had come out.  

Every recipe I found had basically the same ingredients:  pineapple (there's a little in the mixed fruit bag we have on hand... oh crap I'm out), blueberries (check), and mango (check).  So I throw in half a frozen banana, half a mango, a couple handfuls of my frozen blueberries, and a crapload of frozen grapes in various colors, laid the cup on its side in the freezer (so the liquidy melon stuff wouldn't just be stuck by morning), crossed my fingers and went to bed.

This morning I added protein powder and as much water as it took to fill the cup to the "max fill" line, took a deep breath, and hit "Blend."

This.  Was.  Edible.


I liked it.  It was not actually all that different in taste from the other recipes I've been making. 

Though, with the skin from all those grapes and blueberries, and of course those seeds (which were broken up pretty well, but could maybe have gone another 20 seconds in the blender), the texture was kind of gritty.  After a while I learned to just swallow and stop trying to chew that stuff.

And it was so filling (think of all those seeds...) I was only able to drink about half.

I did NOT leave a sample for The Hubs.  He wanted nothing to do with this mess!

I'm a little curious how all those seeds (think "extra fiber") are going to affect my digestive system.  But it's 2pm and I'm alright so far, for what that's worth. (Too much?)

All in all, I say it was a successful experiment.  I'm still up for trying new things.

What about you?  Have you tried something new recently?  What is an unmitigated disaster, or were you pleasantly surprised?

2 comments:

  1. Seaweed (the dried kind at T. Joes)- it's GOOD!

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    Replies
    1. Oh wow, I might never have picked that up. How did you use it/ prepare it?? I'll have to grab some next time I'm in Chicago near a TJ's!

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