More Citrus

This is a red-colored ORANGE. We had about 50 fruits this year. We would have had more, but Edson picked them off when they were grape-sized. These are not as sweet as some oranges, but they are pretty good. When we made orange juice-it was more like reddish-pink juice.
The middle one is peeled like they peel oranges here, and then you can suck all the juice out of it. The citrus fruits are almost finishing. It's been wonderful to pick them straight off the trees!

Grapefruits...or Pomelos...or Toronja!

We had five HUGE GRAPEFRUITS on our tree this year. This is no. 4. Sometimes they get to be the size of a basketball. There are some dark reddish ones and light-grapefruit colored ones.

My dad used to always work away at cutting little triangles out of halved grapefruits. I never liked all the work or the bitter-sweet taste. But, eating a grapefruit in Paraguay is like eating grapefruit sugar. Here people will peel them, cut a hole in the top and suck all the juice out...I decided to do it my dad's old way...cut it in half and slice out little triangles, then squeeze all the juice out.

The huge grapefruits are not juicy. You have to peel them and then pull all the pulp out of them. It tastes like little bubbles of sweet grapefruit. There is no way one person can eat one fruit all alone. It is way to big!

Ummmm! One more left this year!

Guava Flowers

These beautiful, white flowers turn into golf-ball, size guavas in February. I was remembering that I still have some frozen guava butter from last year...hmmm. It suddenly turned into a Guava Coffee Cake. I kind of re-did a Betty Crocker Coffee Cake recipe and adapted it to our own tastes.















Guava Coffee Cake
3 cups self-rising flour
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups milk
2 eggs
Heat oven to 375º
Grease pan.
Blend all ingredients except for the topping. Spread in pan. Drop guava butter by teaspoons full on top of batter and smear slightly.
Sprinkle topping over batter. Bake 25 to 30 min.
Topping...
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
4 tablespoons of butter
2 cups of oats
Mix until crumbly.

Passion Fruit Juice

I found some links to the Passion Fruit. We can usually get the yellow kind. I can't really describe the flavor, but it is another one of my favorites.
I usually make juice out of it. Some people make mousse or other desserts. In Paraguay they always say it is a natural sedative...good for slowing kids down at night...we thought!
We tried that when my sister was here, but it slowed HER down instead! I think it wired her kids up even more! We drank the delicious juice at lunch time and by evening, she was dizzy and had a headache. That's when I remembered what we drank at lunchtime.
Another site on Passion Fruit mentioned this..."2 glasses of juice will naturally calm down the most hyperactive child, and for this reason it is highly valued by Brazilian mothers."
It has a super flavor, but just drink it when you're ready to relax!

One more kumquat post

My aunt sent me a recipe for kumquat syrup! This is so good on pancakes. I also dipped cookies in it for a cold, whipped cream, mousse, creamy dessert. It is also good on crackers with cream cheese for an afternoon snack.

Merlot Candied Kumquats

INGREDIENTS:
1 cups tart kumquats
1-1/2 cups Merlot
1/4 cup water
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
10 cloves
3 cinnamon sticks
DIRECTIONS:
Prepare kumquats:
1. With a sharp knife cut kumquats in half, remove seeds and put in a pot of cold water just to cover.
2. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 8 to 10 min.
3. Drain and refresh with cold water.
Prepare syrup:
1. In a med boiler add all ingredients except kumquats and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer about 10 min. (until it begins to thicken)
2. Add kumquats and simmer an additional 5 min.
3. Pour into clean jars.
Makes 2 pints. Great with ham or chicken.

Kumquats

My Kumquats are ripening nicely. I've been enjoying watching them grow and turn orange so very slowly, it seemed. I linked a site you can look at for nutritional value and recipes. I made some syrup (a recipe from my aunt) that is delicious.

...always a yummy fruit in season!

Tropical Kumquat Cake - Oscar's Birthday Cake

Tropical Kumquat Cake
From: Recipezaar.com
By: Mercy - Aug 26, 2004

Ingredients:
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 cups chopped kumquats
1 cup chopped nuts
1 (20 ounce) can crushed pineapple, well drained (I used fresh pineapple.)
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
Directions:
1.In a bowl, beat eggs, sugar and oil.
2.Fold in dry ingredients and mix well.
3.Add kumquats, nuts and pineapple.
4.Pour into greased and floured tube pan.
5.Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes at 350°F.
6.Cool, remove from pan.

I made it twice already...it was THAT good!

Pomegranate

Another summer fruit...Pomegranate.
Ours is not the very sweet kind. Personally, I don't like it very much since it is a little bit bitter, but some people do. We have two shrub-trees, both have the same kind of fruit. When it's ripe, it splits open. It is dry and you can pluck the seeds out, stick them in your mouth like tic-tacs and suck the fruity part off the seed.

Guava Jam

First off...I have to go pick the guavas. I have two trees out back. One has a pink center and the other is kind of orange-ish. I cut the tops and bottoms off, cut them in half, scoop out the seeds with a melon-baller (which is the perfect size!) and then wash them in order to get all the rest of the tiny seeds out. I boil the guava halves until soft, then put them through the blender. In one pot-ful of guava pulp I add one kilo (2.2lbs) of sugar. It has to boil down for hours! My jam is done when it changes to a thick, dark red sauce. It is VERY messy and when it boils it can shoot out at you...but, it is so good! After it boils down for a while, sometimes I will put it in my slow cooker in order to finish the cooking process on the lowest setting. Then, it doesn't shoot out while it's boiling.

You can buy guava paste in the states, in international stores.

Oh No! It's Guava Time!

Yeah...and I am wasting time...again.
Guavas are ripe and they ripen fast. When I see more than 20 on the ground that means I better hurry up to make my jellies fast or they'll be done. It'll only be a little while longer and we will have to wait a year for this rich-in-vitamin-C fruit.
So, I got online...and punched in...guava recipes. I found this place... http://www.recipezaar.com/ and found 171 recipes for guavas. Then I checked out papaya and found 161 recipes. Then...
Well, then I found out I could organize my own online cookbook with the recipes that I liked or preferred. Then...I had to check out a recipe for...
You know the story...I should have been picking and seeding guavas, or folding the clothes, or sweeping up the pile of dirt from the sand pail, or whatever besides internet!
I did find some excellent guava recipes, though.
How about Guava Cake, Guava Flan, Guava Bars, or Guava Crumble?

Cherimoya

One of my favorite all-time tropical fruits is the Cherimoya. I have also heard it called Pawpaw or custard apple. Every year I remember this fruit as the Easter fruit. When we would have our family-church camps in San Pedro I would always go next door (to my mother-in-law's house) to pick them, hide them, and eat them in a day or two. My friend, Genara, would always save them for me when we would go to visit.
Now we have our own little tree in the back yard. Birds love them, too! That's why we pick them green and let them set out on the countertop for about 2 days and then break them open to eat them. It tastes like a tropical custard. It is filled with black seeds about the size of your little finger nail. You have to suck all the white stuff off the seeds and spit the seeds out. It's soooo good!
It doesn't keep well. I never tried freezing it. You'll have to come try it around Easter time!

Other sites to check out...cherimoya.com. Ours looks similar to the annona squamosa.

I just edited this post...I found some Cherimoya recipes. This is exciting.

New Week Ahead

Well, the birthday's over. The ice cream is gone. The birthday wishes, facebook greetings, cards or gifts have stopped. We all await a new week, a new month, a new year!
It has been extremely hot and humid lately. I thought I'd never say this, but I'm thinking that a little bit of snow would be good right now!...well, just for a day. Then, it would be good to go back to the nice sub-tropical weather of Paraguay.
Some news around town...
The guavas are in season now...a good source of vitamin C. I have been making homemade guava (butter) jelly at least once a week. I store it in the freezer and it lasts almost all year long!
Lemons are ripe and beautiful! We put lemon juice on EVERYTHING, and make lemonade all day long.
Most neighborhood kids are back in school. School supplies are stacked up everywhere.
There are 200+ cases of dengue in Paraguay, but not an epidemic yet.
Family news...Oscar is going to San Pedro tomorrow to butcher a cow, and do some other stuff. Maybe I'll have him take pictures for you all.
Well, gotta go! I have to get some WORK done! I slept in this morning (this is so unusual...oh I mean, I went back to bed AFTER I got the kids and Oscar off to school), then I sat down to fiddle with the computer. My cutie-pie is up sooooo. I gotta go.

Nispero - Loquat

For years I have been wondering about this interesting fruit that I have at home. I knew the spanish name was "nispero", but I never heard of it in English. Well our fruit is ripe, and the birds are happy. I finally looked it up and found out a lot of good stuff.

The following is a cut and paste from Wikipedia.

The loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) is a fruit tree in the subfamily Maloideae of the family Rosaceae, indigenous to southeastern China.
It is an evergreen large shrub or small tree, with a rounded crown, short trunk and woolly new twigs. The tree can grow to 5-10 m tall, but is often smaller, about 3-4 m.
The leaves are alternate, simple, 10-25 cm long, dark green, tough and leathery in texture, with a serrated margin, and densely velvety-hairy below with thick yellow-brown pubescence; the young leaves are also densely pubescent above, but this soon rubs off.
Loquats are unusual among fruit trees in that the flowers appear in the autumn or early winter, and the fruits are ripe in late winter or early spring. In Northern California, loquats bear fruit in May, while in Southern California, loquats bear fruit in April. The flowers are 2 cm diameter, white, with five petals, and produced in stiff panicles of three to ten flowers. The flowers have a sweet, heady aroma that can be smelled from a distance.
Loquat fruits, growing in clusters, are oval, rounded or pear-shaped, 3-5 cm long, with a smooth or downy, yellow or orange, sometimes red-blushed skin. The succulent, tangy flesh is white, yellow or orange and sweet to subacid or acid, depending on the cultivar. Each fruit contains five ovules, of which three to five mature into large brown seeds. The skin, though thin, can be peeled off manually if the fruit is ripe.
This is a cultivar intended for home-growing, where the flowers open gradually, and thus the fruit also ripens gradually, compared to the commercially grown species where the flowers open almost simultaneously, and the whole tree's fruit also ripens together.
The fruits are the sweetest when soft and yellow.
The loquat is comparable with its distant relative, the apple, in many aspects, with a high sugar, acid and pectin content. It is eaten as a fresh fruit and mixes well with other fruits in fresh fruit salads or fruit cups. Firm, slightly immature fruits are best for making pies or tarts. The fruits are also commonly used to make jam, jelly, and chutney, and are delicious poached in light syrup. A type of loquat syrup is used in Chinese medicine for soothing the throat like a cough drop. Combined with other ingredients and known as pipa gao (枇杷膏; pinyin: pípágāo; literally "loquat paste"), it acts as a demulcent and an expectorant, as well as to soothe the digestive and respiratory systems. Loquats can also be used to make wine.
Like most related plants, the seeds (pips) and young leaves of the plant are slightly poisonous, containing small amounts of cyanogenetic glycocides which release cyanide when digested, though the low concentration and bitter flavour normally prevents enough being eaten to cause harm.

I think I am going to go and make jelly right now!!!

Mangos

These mangos are from a tree at the back of our house. They are around 1 lb. each...sometimes heavier. They are bigger than a softball. This one is almost ripe. We have to pick it before the birds pick AT it. Its loaded with vitamins, fiber and calories.

Childhood Memories

Oscar told me that the Acerola cherries needed picked. We have a little shrub in our back yard. While I was giving Edson breakfast, I asked him to pick a few. A few minutes later he came back with a bowl full and said, “There are 10 times this much still out there.
In the hot morning sun, I knew it would be insane to ask my kids to do it. They never HAD to do such a chore. So, getting my gear ready (mosquito repellent, a baggie and sunglasses) I went out to harvest these little cherries.
Right away scenes of my childhood spread across the panoramic view of my mind. Red raspberries in my dreams! Grandpa’s blueberries…so many, you thought you’d never pick them all. There were so many acerolas that they seemed to be ripening as soon as I finished a certain spot.
Since you can do much more than stand in one spot and pick, I started to be thankful. I thanked God that there were no prickly thorns like the red raspberries. I thanked God for the experience I had as a kid, picking berries…that was the only reason I had the patience to do it now. I thanked Him for the refreshing juice we would be enjoying soon, and for the laughter (two big boys and one little one bonding) coming from the house. Finally, the last one was picked!
P.S. I copied some info from Encarta for you…
Barbados Cherry, also called acerola, a tropical American shrub or small tree. The best-known species, native from southern Texas to northern South America and the West Indies, is a widely planted ornamental shrub growing to 1.8 m (6 ft) high. It has slender branches bearing glossy ovate leaves that are pointed at the tip. The rose-colored flowers, 2 cm (0.75 in) wide, grow in clusters. The fruit of the Barbados cherry, which is usually scarlet or red, is a drupe, which is a stone fruit similar to the plum, olive, and peach. The fruit has a pleasant tart taste and is sometimes used in preserves and in cold drinks. The Barbados cherry contains a large amount of vitamin C, and its juice, usually called acerola juice, is added to orange, pineapple, and other juices canned for use as baby food to increase the natural vitamin C content.
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