Minty Blood Orange and Watermelon Salad

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Oh the summer gardening stress has started again.  Poor Nick. He works so hard on our garden, but it never seems to turn out quite as he wishes.  For starters, we planted this mint about a month ago, and we've been warned from countless people that we need to transplant it to a pot so it doesn't start growing out of control and stealing the nutrients from our other plants.  Warning heard, it was moved last week.  Of course, since it's the first ting in our garden to really start thriving, I was sure to snip some mint and make a few things....mint smoothies, mint chocolate chip ice cream, and mint on top of steamed veggies with Parmesan cheese.  I also made this lovely watermelon salad, even though I can't eat watermelon (watermelon is not low FODMAPs).  Watermelon. It's so juicy and sweet and full of nutrients. Yet my body rejects it. Oh well.  Sometimes I just have to make food, despite not being able to eat it myself. I made this for a work demo one day and it was such a big hit that I figured I'd make it again for a family reunion.  Once again, it was a huge hit (although the flies liked it too, ewww).  It's just so easy to make, I could really care less that I can't enjoy it myself.  I mean, I did have one tantalizing taste......every cook/chef/or even dietitian-wannabe-chef needs to taste their food before serving!

Don't have blood oranges? Neither did I when I wanted to make this recipe.  But I did have blood orange olive oil, so I recreated this salad sans the actual blood oranges, and made a couple other "healthy choice" adjustments. It was amazing.  Click the link above if you'd like to follow the original recipe (or use my recipe and just use regular olive oil, half the watermelon, and add a couple blood oranges to the mix!)

Minty Blood Orange and Watermelon Salad

Serves 4

1 small seedless watermelon, peeled and cut into chunks **

¼ cup fresh mint leaves

½ cup reduced-fat feta cheese

  3 tbsp Extra virgin Blood Orange olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Add the watermelon to a large bowl, sprinkle with mint, feta, salt and pepper. Drizzle with oil. Let chill for about an hour. Serve cold.

**NOTE:  If you are following a low FODMAPs diet, try this with cantaloupe instead.  I think it would taste wonderful.  It's on my list of salads to try!

Estimated Nutrition Facts for 1 -serving
Source: CalorieCount.com

Nutrition Highlights:  Low sodium, excellent source of vitamin A (plus lots of lycopene!) and vitamin C.

QUESTION:  What's your go-to summer salad when you have to bring something to a cookout?  I have three; this minty watermelon salad, this quinoa salad, and this bulgar blueberry salad.  

And before I go, did you know that today is "National Eat Your Vegetables Day"?!  In honor of vegetables I'd like to share this photo from a food demo I did at work last week.  Grilled veggies, thrown into a bowl of balsamic vinegar, Tuscan oil and a dash of seasoning. Delicious.

Thanks for reading!

The Candid Rd