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Use your vegetable scraps to make delicious and easy vegetable broth in the slow cooker. Just save your vegetables in a freezer bag and when you have enough you can make this simple broth for soups, gravy, sauces, and more.
Use the green tops of carrots to make a bright and delicious hummus recipe that is perfect for dipping vegetables, pitas and crackers, or using on a sandwich.
Smooth and tangy and lightly spiced cranberry apple butter is cooked in the slow cooker and then stored in freezer containers to use throughout the year. It's perfect on biscuits, toast, sourdough bread, swirled into oatmeal, and more.
Peanut butter is used in this hummus in place of tahini for a budget-friendly alternative that is still delicious and makes a great dip for kids.
Candied watermelon rind is a fun treat and a terrific way to use some of your food scraps and turn them into something you'd want to eat!
Posts may contain affiliate links. If you purchase an item from these links, a small percentage goes to support the work of this blog. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Watermelon rind is edible, though not especially tasty raw. My kids are watermelon monsters, so I buy one almost every week in the summer, leaving us with A LOT of rinds to compost or throw away.
I always enjoy coming up with ways to use up foods that otherwise may be tossed. Things like making pestos from some greens (like the tops of carrots or radishes), eating beet greens, making broths and stocks with the tops of celery and onion peels. These are all great ways to reduce food waste.
The process to candy the rind takes about 4 days, but most of the time is completely hands-off. I scaled up the recipe to make more and I added some drying time in the direct sunlight.
It's an imperfect process that you have to play by ear; a dehydrator may be helpful here and cut down on drying time, but mine turned out delicious without one! If you use a dehydrator, just keep checking them to see when they've reached the dry and chewy state.
Candied watermelon rind is similar to other candied rinds like oranges, lemon, and grapefruits. Watermelon rind is bland in flavor - it does not taste like watermelon. The lemon in this recipe adds the flavoring to the end product.
You can use other flavors if you prefer - lime or ginger would be great ones to try in this recipe if you don't want to use lemon, or don't like lemon flavor.
These are a fun and tasty treat to eat out of hand for a few days - they are almost like a fruit snack in a way. Their shape and texture also remind me of a gummy worm - sweet, a little tart, and a touch chewy. We eat them out of hand, but you can use them to decorate the tops of cupcakes or other treats as well.
When your are planning to make watermelon rind candy, I suggest using rinds from watermelon that you have cut up into a fruit salad or similar. You don't want to collect up ones that people have been touching and eating from with their mouths. Remove the fruit from the rind with a knife and then use that rind for making candy.
Give this watermelon rind candy a try this summer and reduce your food waste and the same time!
Disclosure: Chelsea Green Publishing provided me with a review copy of this cookbook. All opinions expressed are my own.
Posts may contain affiliate
links. If you purchase an item from these links, a small percentage
goes to support the work of this blog. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
When I saw that Sara Bir had a new book coming out dedicated to recipes for foraged fruit, I was super excited to say the least. But, this isn't just a book of recipes, it's full of information - why people forage fruit, doing so respectfully and safely, and also what makes these wild fruits special to us.
