Two days ago it was the International Day of awareness of Food Loss  and Waste. Working in food and cooking for the family twice per day we  can have  a lot of suggestion to share about the subject: from storing food properly  to shopping with a plan. Then we thought the best way to be helpful is with practical suggestion  how to reduce food waste using all what we have in the kitchen. This is the old traditional Italian culture ,a little bit lost also in our country .

After talking of  home -made breadcrumbs, cake with old bread, reuse of lemons, use of egg whites, and leftovers for gardening, today we  want to give another suggestion – that may sound odd-: do not throw the watermelon peels away.

The watermelon peel jam is very good and is perfect with both sweet and savory dishes.

1.5 kg Watermelon peels                          350 g Sugar

1 lemon (juice and peel)                            2 Cinnamon sticks

Remove the green part of the skins with the potato peeler.

Cut the remaining white part into cubes and, if any, also the pink part of the pulp.

Put the cubes together with the sugar in a saucepan.

Add the lemon juice and the grated yellow peel, the cinnamon and quickly bring to a boil.

Then lower the heat and simmer over medium – low heat for about 1 hour.

Stir occasionally and, if necessary, remove the surface foam.

When the jam has reached the desired consistency, remove it from the heat, remove the cinnamon sticks and the cardamom berries.

If you want, you can blend it with an immersion blender

Then proceed to distribute the jam in the jars. Boil the jars for 20 – 25 minutes

Ideas to vary

Add 3-4 Cardamom Berries 

Or 100 ml Red wine (If you want to add wine, add it halfway through cooking  and raise the heat again to evaporate the alcoholic.

Trust me it’s good.Follow us for many more ideas to share.