happy 4th (early)!

My blog friend, Pocky, tweeted me a recipe that is on the Food Network's page for Watermelon Salsa.

This weekend is the 4th of July in the States (which I had forgotten about until Rowena reminded me), so trying to get into the spirit, I thought this salsa would be the perfect thing to try for the "celebration".

Man, coriander a.k.a. Chinese parsley got expensive all of a sudden...I have a feeling all this rain has something to do with it.

And the markets only sell red watermelon (with seeds), so I picked out the seeds and that is what I used. And since I already spent a lot of $$ on Chinese parsley, I didn't want to spend $$ on red onion, so I used what I had.

I liked this, it sort of reminded me of lomi salmon, a dish we have in Hawaii (minus the salmon) and kind of like chirmol. (Thanks Pocky!)

I also threw together a warm corn "salsa" with a can of corn, some zucchini, onion and roasted red bell pepper, seasoned with some black pepper.

I had intended to serve this watermelon salsa with some shrimp but remembered that I had already thawed out some pork (after buying some shrimp), so I sauteed the pork in some homemade taco seasoning. (I'll make the shrimp tomorrow to serve with the rest of the salsas.)

Everything went nicely with some corn chips and Yebisu All Malt Beer.

This was a delicious start to the weekend, even if it is only Thursday!