Last week I attended a fun event at Elmwood Spa dedicated to watermelons. Yes, watermelons! ???The National Watermelon Promotion Board had this brilliant idea to create events like this one to show us how we can consume watermelon in different ways, even on cold months.
Of course, in the summer we already eat a lot of watermelon (at least me). I like to freeze and use them on juices and cocktails because of its sweetness. We don’t even have to use sugar to prepare drinks!
But then I learned I can incorporate watermelons in a variety of dishes, such as ceviche (after you learn this, you realize it’s obvious, right?), fried chicken (I swear!) and even pizza.
Talking about pizza, I’m so glad I discovered this option. I don’t eat pizza as much as I’d like ’cause of the dough. Now I can prepare different toppings and use watermelon as the base.
Another thing I’ll definitely incorporate in my routine are the watermelon margaritas. I’ve never tried it before but it’s an excellent idea for the same reason I love to blend watermelon on my other drinks: it’s way sweeter than limes and I don’t have to add sugar to make my margarita tasty.
But at this event I learned more than recipes as the National Watermelon Queen came all the way from South Carolina to Toronto to talk to us about this fruit. Here are some highlights:
- Watermelon contains vitamin A (good for our immune system) and vitamin C (helps us against the damage of free radicals)
- It’s free of cholesterol, fat and sodium
- We can have it all year long. Each year, the Canadian market imports over 300 million pounds of US watermelon.
- There are over 1,200 varieties of watermelon worldwide (I bet you didn’t know that! Don’t worry, so didn’t I)
Besides all the food, drinks and chat, we were invited to a manicure session and, of course, the nail art theme was watermelon!
I’m really glad they invited me. First of all because it was a fun afternoon with amazing food and perfect drinks. But, more than that, it inspired me, and not all events have this power in me. I came back home and couldn’t stop telling my husband all the things I ate prepared with watermelon, and now we have a lot of plans to eat this fruit year round.
We agreed we can prepare pizza on Sunday nights (that’s when we like to eat junk food watching TV) and the next ceviche will have watermelon in it.
And of course I’ll show everything here on the blog and share all the recipes with you!
