Watermellon Recipes?? Just brought home 225 overripe mellons- HELP!!!!

[dipence71]

Just brought home 225 overripe mellons- Need recipes asap.
I am feeding mos to my chickens, But some I would love to use myself if possible.....

Holy cow. Where'd you get that many?!?

A lady that comes in and gets her hair done at the shop was selling watermelons here while back and I casually said "hey if you get any that you cant sell I have chickens that would love some!!!" Well she called and I went and got 225 and I bet there were still 150 on the ground but my truck bed was FULL!!!! I thought maybe like 25 or so but no there were hundreds!!!!

Picked out the best 3 to just eat. but I have a ton to mess with and thought hmmm what else besides overdosing chickens with watermelons can I do....

 

[dipence71]

PR Pot Roast

1 four pound bone-in roast

Adobo:

12 cloves garlic
powdered oregano.......oh, wait, you said watermelon recipes.....quick, go get a pig and let him have at it on that pile of watermelons once you make what you want! Then come back for the roast recipe!


How about watermelon wine?

How do you make watermelon wine?

 

[Marianne]

Dehydrate some! Watermelon is what, 90% water? Makes great fruit leather, though!

 

[k15n1]

It's easy if you have the equipment. Figure 200 $ to get set up. You'll need a 6-gal carboy and 2 5 gal carboys. Also, tubing, brushes, bottles, corks, etc.

Basically, you cut out the fruit and cook it down a bit until you have a sweet soup. You measure the sugar content by specific gravity and add honey or sugar to set the final alcohol content. Then add yeast culture, airlock, and wait. After the bubbles slow, you siphon off the clear part. That might take a few repeats. When it stops bubbling completely, you can put it in bottles. There's lots of good information about making fruit wine on the intertubes.

If the fruit is free, and you can make 100 bottles (roughty 4 batches) you're in the 2 $/bottle range, which is not bad. If you already own your equipment, you're in the 1 $/bottle range, which is hard to beat because the bottles cost about 1$ ea!

You can cook dow a lot of that fruit and keep it in the freezer until you're set up to make wine. And if you abandon your wine project, you can turn it into jam.

 

[RobinsValleyVT]

It's easy if you have the equipment. Figure 200 $ to get set up. You'll need a 6-gal carboy and 2 5 gal carboys. Also, tubing, brushes, bottles, corks, etc.

Basically, you cut out the fruit and cook it down a bit until you have a sweet soup. You measure the sugar content by specific gravity and add honey or sugar to set the final alcohol content. Then add yeast culture, airlock, and wait. After the bubbles slow, you siphon off the clear part. That might take a few repeats. When it stops bubbling completely, you can put it in bottles. There's lots of good information about making fruit wine on the intertubes.

If the fruit is free, and you can make 100 bottles (roughty 4 batches) you're in the 2 $/bottle range, which is not bad. If you already own your equipment, you're in the 1 $/bottle range, which is hard to beat because the bottles cost about 1$ ea!

You can cook dow a lot of that fruit and keep it in the freezer until you're set up to make wine. And if you abandon your wine project, you can turn it into jam.

That sounds great! We brew our own beer, hard cider and mead. We did soda one year, but that was dangerous ! I'd love to do a rose hip wine this fall.

You could always cut some up and freeze it for the chickens if you have some freezer space, then dole it out as you want.

I would also try the fruit leather. That would keep a while vacuum sealed.

Good find on the melons!