Recipe: Melon dish spans end of summer, start of fall
![]() but any muskmelon will work. (Photos: Kathy Morrison |
Late September is a great time of year for farm-fresh produce, but it’s also a confusing one. Should I make one more fresh peach cobbler before the stone fruit disappears, or jump into fall with a pear galette? Plums or apples? Berries or figs?
We’re right at the end of local melon season now, so there’s still time to make this fragrant and delicious melon gazpacho recipe I ran across years ago in the Los Angeles Times food section.
I typically make it with cantaloupe or other fresh muskmelon that either I grow or find at the farmers market. This year I tried a new melon in my garden, the Papaya Dew hybrid. It looks like a honeydew in skin color, but it’s smaller and more football-shaped, weighing it at about 3 pounds. The flesh inside is the color of apricots, firm but juicy. And when the aroma of the first melon I picked perfumed my whole kitchen, I was hooked. The last four of them ripened at the same time earlier this month, so I knew it was time to bring out the gazpacho recipe.
This gazpacho is a wonderful first course before a summer meal, but with the days growing shorter, I think it works best as a brunch offering. Present it in chilled bowls or shot glasses, depending on how many other dishes you’re serving. It’ll get the meal off to a sweet (but not too sweet) start.
Melon gazpacho
2 cups cubed French bread or sourdough, all crusts removed (cubes should be 1 inch or smaller)
¼ cup plus 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar (or champagne vinegar or sherry vinegar)
5 cups peeled, seeded and cubed melon, ripe but not too ripe (equal to about one 3-pound melon)
¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon diced red onion
¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
3 dried bay leaves, pulverized nearly to powder (with a mortar and pestle or spice grinder)
Sea salt
½ cup ice cubes, or as needed
Smoked paprika or more extra-virgin olive oil, for garnish, optional
Instructions:
Place the bread cubes in a bowl and pour the vinegar over; allow to soak while you’re preparing the other ingredients.
Using a blender or food processor, puree the melon cubes with the red onion. Add the soaked bread and the vinegar to the blender and puree until smooth.
With the motor running, add the olive oil slowly, then the ground-up bay leaves. Adjust the seasoning to taste with salt.
If the soup seems too thick, add some of the ice cubes and puree until the desired consistency is reached. (Note: The gazpacho will thicken when refrigerated before serving.) Adjust seasoning again with vinegar and/or salt.
Transfer the gazpacho to a large nonreactive container (I use an 8-cup Pyrex measuring cup) and chill before serving.
Serve gazpacho with a sprinkle of smoked paprika for garnish or, if desired, a thin swirl of extra-virgin olive oil.
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Food in My Back Yard Series
April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers
April 8: When to plant summer vegetables
April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths
March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth
March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space
March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds
March 4: Potatoes from the garden
Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later
Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space
Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants
Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting
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Garden Checklist for week of April 20
Before possible showers at the end of the week, take advantage of all this nice sunshine – and get to work!
* Set out tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants.
* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, radishes and squash.
* Plant onion sets.
* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias.
* Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.
* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom.
* Plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.
* Transplant lettuce and cabbage seedlings.
* Smell orange blossoms? Feed citrus trees with a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants.
* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.
* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.
* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.
* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden is really hungry. Give shrubs and trees a dose of a slow-release fertilizer. Or mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost.
* Start thinning fruit that's formed on apple and stone fruit trees -- you'll get larger fruit at harvest (and avoid limb breakage) if some is thinned now. The UC recommendation is to thin fruit when it is about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Peaches and nectarines should be thinned to about 6 inches apart; smaller fruit such as plums and pluots can be about 4 inches apart. Apricots can be left at 3 inches apart. Apples and pears should be thinned to one fruit per cluster of flowers, 6 to 8 inches apart.
* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.
* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.
* Weed, weed, weed! Don’t let unwanted plants go to seed.