A New Golden Gem in the Produce Section

I am a huge fruits and veggies person.  Salads are one of my absolute favorite things to make in the kitchen because they are healthy, colorful, tasty, and easy to make.  Lately, I have ventured out in my veggie salad making to experiment with different ingredients such as fennel, radishes, and edamame just to name a few.  However, I haven't found anything recently to add to my fruit salad recipes.  Normally I just use whatever kind of fruit happens to be lying around in the kitchen, so the next time I found myself in the HEB produce section, I looked more closely at the fruit to see if I could find something new.  After glancing over a surprising variety of peaches and plums, which are both currently in season, my eye was soon drawn to a large crate in the middle of the aisle full of large, round golden orbs I had never seen before.  I looked at the sign, which read "Golden Honeydew Melons" and was instantly intrigued.  The normally pale green, super sweet honeydew melon is probably my favorite fruit, which is saying something since I love basically all fruit.  I took one of these melons home with me excited to see how a golden honeydew would compare.

The skin of the of melon was hard and tough, so it was hard to cut into at first.  When the two halves fell open, I was surprised to see the flesh inside was white rather than green or golden like I had expected.  Curious to see how it would taste, I scooped out the seeds into a bowl and cut off a slice. The flesh was not quite as soft and juicy as a regular honeydew, which makes me think this melon was slightly underripe, but the taste did not lack at all.  It was deliciously sweet, almost sweeter than the green honeydew, and struck me as a bit more tangy and rich as well.  I also think the white color is pretty and appealing.  It was so delicious, I nearly ate a quarter of the melon before I could stop myself.

I'm eating a large slice of it now as I write this post.  If there is enough left over by the time I finish snacking on it, I'll try adding it to one of my favorite easy, creamy fruit salads:

Ingredients

2 Granny Smith apples, cored and cut into 1/2-inch chunks

1 pound honeydew melon, cut into 1/2-inch chunks

1 (20-ounce) can pineapple rings in syrup, drained and cut into small wedges

1/2 cup dried cherries

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1/2 cup cream of coconut

Pinch of salt

Directions

In a large bowl add the apple chunks, honey dew melon, pineapple chunks, dried cherries, yogurt, cream of coconut and a pinch of salt. Stir to combine.

Recipe courtesy of Sunny Anderson of the Food Network 

I substitute the cream of coconut in this recipe with coconut flakes or coconut flavored yogurt for a sweeter take.  A little extra salt also doesn't hurt.  Trust me, melon and salt make an extra tasty combo.  I think I'm going to have to head back to HEB to pick up a couple more of these sweet melons because I don't foresee this one lasting long enough to make it into the fruit salad...