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Minty Watermelon Lemonade (vegan/gf recipe) | seasonal plant-based recipes via The Sweet Miscellany Blog

Juicy and sweet watermelon is juiced with lemon, mint, and ginger for a refreshing summer juice. This vegan and gluten free watermelon lemonade is perfect served over ice!

I’ve mentioned here many times how the only saving grace to Texas summers is the produce. At the moment, figs, peaches, blueberries, and watermelon are all simultaneously in season. I’m doing my best not to gorge myself on too much fruit these days, though I can’t say I’ve been successful lately. Summer produce at its peak is just too damn good to resist! This week the issue is the shear amount of fruit that I acquired at the market. Without thinking, I bought a large watermelon, about 9 peaches, and a pound of figs. I already had blueberries in my fridge so needless to say it’s been a fruit party all week. I suppose there are worse problems to have than a glut of ripe summer fruit.

The problem I’ve been dealing with this week is trying to use up all of the fruit before it goes bad. I absolutely hate having to throw out produce that is past its prime. I think maybe it’s because it makes me feel so wasteful. And also, it sort of makes me feel like I failed at adequately utilizing everything I had. So, to avoid any garbage mishaps, I resorted to the best way to use up a ton of fruit: JUICE IT!

My juicer has been neglected the past couple of months because I got really tired of cleaning all of the parts. Reading that sentence makes it seem really silly and petty but I know I can’t be the only person out there that hates cleaning a juicer. I decided to show it a bit of love yesterday and make a really easy and delicious version of lemonade. It’s actually only lemonade in the sense that it has some lemon in it. There’s no added sugar, just wonderful summer watermelon. Since I have a mint plant, and since the flavors pair so well together, I threw a handful of it in the juicer along with a bit of ginger for some zing. The ginger is optional but I highly recommend it. What’s listed below makes enough for one ample serving so multiply to your heart’s content. If you are feeling like something a little more substantial, you can try the watermelon and mint lassi that I created for the Summer 2013 issue of Chickpea Magazine. It can be found here.

Minty Watermelon Lemonade

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Author: Courtney West
Total Time: 5 minutes
Yield: 1 serving 1x
Diet: Vegan

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Description

Juicy and sweet watermelon is juiced with lemon, mint, and ginger for a refreshing summer juice. This vegan and gluten free watermelon lemonade is perfect served over ice!

Ingredients

Units Scale

2 heaping cups of cubed fresh watermelon
large handful of fresh mint
half of a small lemon, outer peel & pith removed
small knob of ginger (about one inch), peeled

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Instructions

Juice all of the ingredients, stir together, then serve! Or, alternately, blend everything up in a blender with a bit of ice. Makes enough for one serving.

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Category: drink

I usually don’t bring up major news or anything happening outside of my kitchen on this blog, but today I will gladly be breaking away from the norm. You might already be a bit thrown off by the title of the post, and that’s ok. If you stick around, I’ll explain it to you, and if you hang in until the end, a delicious recipe awaits.Were you aware that roughly 90% of out of season tomatoes at your local grocery store chain are grown in Southern Florida? Were you also aware that this area has been referred to as “ground zero” for modern day slavery in the United States? Yes folks, slavery still occurs on American soil. The nearly 1 billion pounds of out of season tomatoes arrive on grocery shelves at the cost of human rights abuses of migrant workers and child laborers who only see less than one cent per pound of tomatoes. Unbelievable. Unacceptable. Ridiculous.

From this point on, it is within our best interest, as a nation, and as human beings interested in respecting the human rights of others, to seek out slave-free tomatoes or none at all. This summer, the International Justice Mission formed a parternship with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers as well as the Fair Food Standards Council in order to start “Recipe for Change”. This is a campaign that will raise awareness about the injustices occurring in tomato fields across the United States. The goal is to develop a zero tolerance policy for slavery, child labor, and abuse. Through both of the organizations mentioned above, and consumers like you and me, it is our intention to ask major supermarket chains to support the Fair Food Program which would provide you with slave-free tomatoes. Supporting this means a slight increase per pound of tomatoes (1.5 cents) and a promise to purchase from farmers abiding by the aforementioned standards. Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are already on board, as are local farmers markets and CSA programs.

You might feel helpless in this matter, but spreading the word about this problem is the best way to get it out into the public. You can support this cause simply by purchasing your slave-free tomatoes from the locations mentioned above, but if you want to take it a step further, I encourage you to contact your local supermarket and demand that they sell slave-free tomatoes. As human beings, we should put the welfare of others first above profit.

In order to spread awareness about this issue, the Giving Table initiated a day long awareness campaign for food bloggers on July 24th in which they could share slave-free tomato recipes. So, even though I’m a few days late, I’m sharing a recipe for a slave-free tomato and coconut bisque in hopes that this will spread awareness about this issue, and also put something yummy in your belly.
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