The recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon gets right to the heart of summer, pairing sweet, juicy watermelon with tangy, salty feta cheese. Like many of my favorite recipes that use feta, you can buy a high-quality block in brine for this salad. I like a creamy Bulgarian sheep’s milk feta, which holds its shape well, or the sharp taste of Greek sheep’s milk feta alongside the sweet melon.

My favorite pairing is homemade Dry-Salted Feta. Even when I use whole cow’s milk instead of milk from goats or sheep, it has far superior flavor and texture to the crumbly, dry store-bought American feta made from skimmed cow’s milk. The hardest part about making feta is holding the milk at a steady temperature for a couple of hours—a challenge that is far easier amid summer’s heat than during freezing winter months.

Learn more about using an entire watermelon and get the complete recipe for Watermelon and Feta Salad in my column.

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Twice as Tasty

Whether I’m cutting into a melon for this watermelon salad, Watermelon–Mint Sorbet, or Watermelon–Basil Shrub, I like to make full use of the melon flesh and rind. About 40 percent of every watermelon’s weight is in its rind, which seems like a lot to waste, even if you compost it. So I developed two watermelon rind pickles for my pickling cookbook. One pickles a little of the flesh on the rind for tangy-sweet bites and is ready within an hour. The other ferments the light green rind in a salt brine for several days, until tart and crunchy.

For the cheese side of the salad, a gallon of milk will leave you with plenty of extra homemade feta to use in other recipes. Here are just a few of my favorites on the blog. You can find more in the recipe index.

• Warm Quinoa and Feta Salad
• Chickpea and Vegetable Couscous Salad
• Spring Vegetable Quiche (easily adaptable to a summer variation with garden-fresh vegetables)

I also stuff homemade feta into Pillowy Sourdough Pita with baked falafel, a recipe I shared on Clean Plates. If you’re new to making cheese at home, this blog post will give you some encouragement.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.