Fun Stuff
Summer Fruit
and what to do with it
Tis the season.... local trees and farms and green houses as well as established businesses from far and near are providing their yield of summer fruit for consumers. Like everything else in life this presents pros and cons. (This post focuses on fruit but could apply to vegetables as well.)
Obviously it is a wonderful time of year for indulging in our favorite berries, melons, etc. The peaches that will soon be available from the western part of our state are mouth watering just to think about.
But there are personal dilemmas. One is the fact there are only two of us to eat the goodies at my house. I love cantaloupe and watermelon. But there is also a frugal side to my nature. Unless we eat melon every day for two weeks some of it goes to waste. Getting past that there is another problem; picking out the melon. Sure, you can buy cut melon at the supermarket, but so often it's already overripe as well as twice the price.
I am terrible at picking out a whole melon. So you spend several dollars for what looks like a winner. You get it home, cut it open, and it is already waaay over ripe. It's like throwing my cash to the wind.
My greatest admiration goes out to those who enjoy growing and canning fruit. I haven't done that since leaving for college and don't intend to start now. Freezing a certain amount is okay, but there are limitations with having a small freezer.
So when neighbors offer their excesses of cherries or peaches they have to leave the bag on the porch and run, or deal with acceptance of just a small amount of what they hope I'll take off their hands.
If the seller of produce at the farmer's market gives me a dirty look when I buy only three or four of his apples, peaches, or whatever, I've learned to ignore him.
If an employee in the produce department smiles and asks me if I'm finding everything okay, I've become bold enough to ask him or her if they know how to choose a good watermelon - the smaller, seedless, kind. That way if it isn't any good they get the blame.
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I love melon of all kind and often will eat it by myself. I often wonder where I will put it in the refrigerator. Since I buy so many I have found the trick to picking a good one. Try thumping it. If it sounds hollow it is just right! Happy eating. :)
ReplyDeleteI've heard about the thumping for the hollow sound and concluded my hearing isn't too good.
DeleteOne way to use up too much melon is to put it in the blender - it makes a great afternoon drink. May want to add a touch of lemon and/or sugar with ice.
ReplyDeleteOn the note of too much: at the food center where I volunteer, we have been inundated with fresh vegetables and fruits - everyone donates and we find that we are composting TONS of beautiful produce - I don't know what to think of that. I'm glad it is mostly composted and even that some go to the pig farms, but still there are times when our bins are overfull and we simply have to trash it.
Perhaps like me you would be thinking about all of those hungry people who would be so grateful for this bounty but the complexity of getting it to them while the produce is fresh is too costly.....
DeleteLife is such an imbalance.
I love fresh fruit! From childhood on, I've been known to eat a plateful of fruit for a summer supper. It's good for our budget that cherries have such a short season (although the season seems to be getting longer and longer, stretching from sometimes late May into August, instead of about six weeks from June to mid-July) as my husband indulges me, never complaining even when I buy 7 or 8 pounds every few days.
ReplyDeleteI'm grateful, though I do wish he could grasp that I cannot (especially at my present age!) eat 15 pounds of cherries, a basket of peaches, a large (seeded) watermelon, as well as gallons of berries in the same week.
I used to make jam and preserves with all the berries (especially when we had more than 100 blueberry bushes), but he only eats grape jelly and I don't eat much bread. Nor do I bake as many pies -- I can't handle the calories and the kind of pastry I have to make now is too delicate to be an any-day task.
Our food pantries will not accept fresh fruits and vegetables, nor home preserved (canned, dried) ones. Everything has to be commercially prepared and factory sealed. On the other hand, people at church tend to take bags, baskets and boxes of whatever they have too much of and share the wealth. We have at least two families with backyard hen coops, so we even get farm-fresh eggs in the spring and summer.
People at our worship center do that too! Attendees are sure to get a few free zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, and the excess of whatever fruit tree flourished that particular year. Little do they know one of our number cannot can all of the peaches she ordered due to illness, so in a couple of weeks there will be peaches.
DeleteI love this time of the year with all the fresh fruit. I am partial to Georgia peaches. I was in Georgia one July and stopped at a fruit stand. Those were the best peaches ever! So now I wait for the truck to come to the Midwest every July and I buy them right off the truck. They are pricey, but I usually split a crate with a friend (who was on the trip with me to Georgia and also is addicted) and we have plenty to enjoy ourselves and share some with others.
ReplyDeleteIt would be a great taste off to compare those Georgia peaches with the Palisade peaches from western Colorado. :)
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