Growing up on a farm where there was always a vegetable garden, which included cantaloupes and watermelons, gave me the knowledge of how to pick a ripe cantaloupe. When ripe, cantaloupes have a wonderfully sweet fragrance, the stems should not be attached and the blossom end should yield to moderate pressure.I only buy cantaloupes in the summer time when I know they are fresh from the field. My father, who loved both watermelons and cantaloupes, once planted several acres of both melons and offered them free to anyone who wanted to pick them. As a little girl, there were melons as far as my eye could see. Those images are burned in my mind as mental photographs.
We always ate cantaloupes au naturel which is how everyone ate them when I was young. Now that I have been cooking for many years, I have used cantaloupes in many ways-compotes, cold soups and this granita recipe for a quick, easy and very flavorful dessert.
Adapted from Epicurious
Ingredients
2 cups coarsely chopped ripe cantaloupe
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon triple sec
1 cup ice cubes
Combine all ingredients in a blender and process until smooth. Pour into a 13x9 pan and freeze for about forty minutes. Scrape with a fork and serve in chilled glasses
Serves about 4.
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