Melons are a great way to cool down during the hot summer days. But if eating just plain melons is too boring for you, maybe try something different.

Here I have a good mix of sweet corn, cantaloupes, and black beans. I don’t know what to call it, so I’ll simply call it “Coconut Melons”. This is a popular Asian dessert. In Lao and Thai they call it, “nam wan” which translates to sweet water.

It’s a great way to enjoy what’s in season too. It takes a while to whip up, but it’s worth it and everything is made with really good ingredients. Except for maybe the sugar. Try substituting with honey or agave syrup.

Directions:

Soak 1 cup of black beans overnight. Rinse and cook in a pot until it’s soft. Once it’s cooked you then add 1/2 can of coconut milk and some sugar to your liking. I don’t like it too sweet as the melons and corn are sweet enough.

While that’s cooking, you can cut up 1/2 ripe cantaloupes into small pieces.

Steam about 4 ears of corn and then remove the corn kernel by trimming the corn. You can layer the melon, corn, then beans or just toss it all together.

I actually didn’t make this all in one day. I got the corn when it was on sale at 6 for $1 a couple of days ago. So that was already steamed. Then yesterday I found the cantaloupes at $1.50. I started to cut that up today. And the black beans were soaked overnight.

The best part was that everything was much cheaper since they were in season.

Along the same note, this could easily be a topping for the Filipino Halo-Halo dessert. Just serve over crushed ice and you’ll have an even cooler dessert!