The Surprisingly Easy Watermelon Basket

Tonight we were invited to a gathering with no name or theme, or even an expressed purpose (hanging out with great people was implied).  There would be food.  We could bring something if we wanted.  Well!  With such nonexistent guidelines, I didn't know which way to turn.  So I asked my group of friends last night at our Gals' Dinner Out what to do ... I was thinking about melons.  Jeanne said, "Why not make a melon basket!  It's easy!" 

I laughed.  Ha!  I could just see the hash I'd make hacking around on a juicy melon, not to mention the low likelihood of ending up with something worthy of taking where Other People would actually see it.

But once again, as has been the case so many times (and I've blogged about many of them), I was entirely wrong.  I tried it.  And it worked. 

May you all be so blessed with friends who have faith in you, and with the courage to do something outside your culinary comfort zone.

This was instinctive.  To keep the melon from tipping, I sliced a bit off the side to keep it stable.

With the knife point, I scored a line around the long equator so I'd know where to stop when slicing the basket handle.  I also lightly scored, on the top, the desired width of the basket handle so I'd know where to cut.

Now we're cookin'.  I got a container ready for the melon squares.  (Yes, that is a box of Gilmore Farms organic nectarines in the background.  They are awesome!  See Gilmore Farms at our local farmers' markets.  The melon is from Sageland Farms in Pasco.)

With a smaller, slimmer knife, I cut the arch of melon out from under the basket handle, and started making cubes of the pieces as I cut them out.

Cutting down into the bowl of the melon.  This is a little tricky because of the curves.  So I started saving the nicest-looking, most even cubes separately for the finished presentation.

An ice cream scoop worked great for cleaning out the melon bowl.  After that, it was just fill (least perfect pieces underneath, saved perfect cubes for the top), chill, and go!