Watermelon Basket Fruit Salad

Ingredients

• 1 watermelon
• cantaloupe
• honeydew melon
• seedless grapes
• peach
• nectarine
• strawberry
• blueberries
• raspberries
• blackberry
• plum
• orange
• lemon slices or lime slices or orange slice, for garnish
• grapes, for garnish
• melon balls or cherries, for garnish
• toothpick

Directions

1. Take a sharp knife and slice a small thin piece off the bottom of your melon.
2. This will allow the finished basket to sit flat on a plate or table without rolling.
3. Next, take the tip of your knife (you can also use your pumpkin decorating tool out if you have one) or garnishing tool and score the watermelon in half, horizontally.
4. Then mark a strip of about 1 1/2- 2" wide that will form the handle of your basket.
5. If you have trouble seeing the score lines, you might want to try using a marker.
6. Next, take your garnishing tool and start cutting around the melon on the lines.
7. The garnishing tool naturally makes V shaped cuts, which makes doing a basket like this a breeze.

8. If you do not have a garnishing tool, use a small knife and make the V cuts one side at a time.
9. You could also forget the V and make straight cuts.
10. To make separating the melon easier, and the finished product neater, turn your garnishing tool over, and go over the cuts in the opposite direction.
11. Carefully separate the cut sides from the body of the watermelon.
12. If you used a marking pen and there are any residual marks left, a handy way to get rid of them is to use a new emory board and gently sand them off.
13. Take a melon baller and hollow out the inside of the watermelon.
14. After removing all the edible parts, take a large spoon and gently scrape out the sides of your"basket".
15. Be care not to scrape too thinly on the handle, as you want it to have some stability, even though you will never try to carry it this way.
16. Mix the watermelon balls (or pieces, if you don't have a melon baller) with other ripe fresh fruits.
17. To make the handle garnish, thinly slice lemons, limes or oranges and use a toothpick to affix them, along with a grape, melon ball or cherry, to the watermelon.
18. Keep any extra fruit in a zip-lock back and refill as it goes down!