Year Of The Cantaloupe

Some of the garden did not do well this year, like zucchini and beans, but the winner of Best Producer in the 2010 Garden has got to be the cantaloupe. (Cucumbers and peppers are the runner-ups.) Our current cantaloupe count is at 73 picked! We've been picking 6-10 of them every couple of days. There are still 20+ out there.

So naturally, when you have that many cantaloupe, you can't possibly eat them all, so you give some away and then you look for things to do with them. I've cut some up and frozen the chunks in containers. Then I found a recipe for Cantaloupe Bread! It is pictured below and wow, is it moist and tasty! It doesn't taste like cantaloupe, though, and I did not put on the praline glaze that the recipe called for. So now I have cut up more of them, pureed them, and frozen the puree for later bread-making.

Then, can you guess what these are?

If you said Pickled Cantaloupe, you are right! They look pretty, don't they? I found the recipe in the Ball preserving book, which has all kinds of interesting recipes. They have a spicy (i.e. cinnamon, cloves,etc.), vinegary, sweet (you add sugar) taste. Not too much like cantaloupe, but they are good! The kids liked them.