Granita

Recently we were invited over to a friends house to have dinner. Since we all have several allergies (corn, peanut, tree nuts, dairy and wheat!) things get a nutty. Luckily I had some frozen fruit and a big watermelon in the fridge when my friend asked me to bring dessert. I made watermelon granita, peach granita and cherry granita. They were all yummy and I even enjoyed the watermelon and peach together. Super sweet but tasted like summer to me. They are super easy to make especially if you have frozen fruit that your not sure why or what you were buying it for.

Watermelon granita:

A large (heavy for it's size) seedless watermelon cut into chucks
1/4 cup of sugar
2 tbsp of lemon juice (fresh or bottled)

Take the cut up chunks of watermelon and place in a food processor. Liquify the mixture and add the lemon juice and sugar. Taste. Place in a swallow baking dish. ( I used a 9x13 dish) Place in the freezer for 30 minutes. Scrap down the sizes after 30 minutes and continue to freeze. Scrap down the sizes every 30 minutes for 4 hours or so. Once it's the slushy consistency you want, place in an air tight container and back into the freezer (or enjoy!)

My kids loved these and thought they were thicker Slurpees. Easy to do and a great way to sneak in a little fruit to picky eaters.

For the peach granita I did the exact same recipe as above but let the frozen peaches thaw for a half hour before I placed them in a food processor. This was yummy and used a little less sugar. Go easy on the sugar when you know the fruit is sweet.

For the cherry granita I used a whole bag of frozen pitted cherries. I cooked these down in a 1/4 cup of sugar and about 1/4 cup of water. Added the lemon juice and then pureed them in a food processor. Adding the granita to a 9x9 square baking dish. These cook down a LOT so we didn't end up bringing them to dinner with us but they were sweet and delicious after they froze up a bit.