kelp noodles

these are raw noodles! at first i tried them cold in a salad wrap and i didn't care for the texture. they were rubbery, even crunchy, with a slightly weird taste. but i recently gave them another try in a warm miso soup. this softened them up and covered any taste. they are now much like bean thread "invisible" noodles.

Stars!

well i've been a terrible blogger for quite some time, but i hope to remedy that.

When i saw bags of starfruit at the farmers market, i went for it. who can resist that awesome shape that looks so tropical.



i dont think i had ever had them before. I think i expected them to be somewhat tart, like a kiwi.
the real taste was blander than i expected. the thin skin is edible and the flesh has the texture and juiciness of a firm grape, but a taste like.. apples?



a few sliced stars of this was all i cared to eat. so i had an idea for the extra. I dont have a dehydrator anymore but i do have an oven. i put the stars on a baking sheet with tin foil on it. i turned the oven on low for a while, then turned it off, repeating this for a few days. i left it off at night and when nobody was home , of course. so there is low heat and a dry area. not really much air circulation, but at least if it is closed up the ants that patrol this house can't walk away with my fruit.

i do prefer the starfruit dried. it makes it sweeter, but it is still pretty mild and it's now mostly skin. i think there are much better things to dry, but at least i gave it a try.

Freshly Baked Breadfruit

during my third third trip to the farmers market i decided that i should try something new each time i go there (or at least once in a while) so this time i went for Breadfruit, which sounds delicious.

Breadfruit originally came from the Philippines and grows in many tropical locales.
the Hawaiian name for it is Ulu. i think it is related to durian and jackfruit and it has that same spiky rugby ball look.

this is the Hawaiian legend about its origins (taken from wikipedia):
According to an etiological Hawaiian myth, the breadfruit originated from the sacrifice of the war god Kū. After deciding to live secretly among mortals as a farmer, Kū married and had children. He and his family lived happily until a famine seized their island. When he could no longer bear to watch his children suffer, Kū told his wife that he could deliver them from starvation, but to do so he would have to leave them. Reluctantly she agreed, and at her word, Kū descended into the ground right where he had stood until only the top of his head was visible. His family waited around the spot he had last been day and night, watering it with their tears until suddenly a small green shoot appeared where Kū had stood. Quickly, the shoot grew into a tall and leafy tree that was laden with heavy breadfruits that Kū's family and neighbors gratefully ate, joyfully saved from starvation

the breadfruit of Tahiti also played a role in the famous Mutiny on the Bounty.

I know of three or four places that breadfruit grows in my town, including on tree on the street where i live.



this is my breadfruit from the farmers market. i think it cost $2.50

the fuit exudes a white stick sap when it is raw.



exetreme close-up!


the whole thing is made of many parts, i believe they're termed bracts, that have fused together.


the inner wooden-like core must be removed.


I tried it raw and the texture was a bit like creamy avocado but with inner fibers. it tastes a little like banana with a grassy aftertaste, but it is very unique.



know i know this is a raw food blog, but breadfruit is usually cooked. in fact i'm not sure if it is safe to eat a lot of it raw. some things, like taro, should be eaten raw. in the case of taro, it has calcium oxalate crystals inside that are like fiberglass that are neutralized when cooked. with the strange sap of breadfruit, i didn't want to chance it and cooked it. it seemed to ripen the day after i got it, from hard to almost squishy. like plantains it is eaten both unripe and starchy and sweet/ripe. in fact is is cooked in similar ways. it can also be made into chips like potatoes.

I followed the easiest recipe that said to microwave it in a bowl with a little water for 3 minutes or so then add butter to melt on the top. it was very yummy! and it really does have a texture like breaddough. it was less sweet after being cooked and the salt from the butter was a nice addition.


i dropped the raw goo from the other half onto a hot frying pan to amke fritters of sorts. i fried it on both sides like i do to plantains. it tasted a lot like sweet potato fries. :)



to up the savoriness we melted a little cheese on top. shh! ;D


overall i'd recommend that people try this, especially if you are a sweet potato fan. it was very surprising!

learn some more!



check out this helpful page. i didn't know there was a Breadfruit Institute:
http://www.ntbg.org/breadfruit/uses/food1.php


a more technical page with breakdowns of the varieties and the specific nutrient contents:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/breadfruit.html#Food%20Uses

Blending for Dollars.

It's about time i told you about my new job! I work at a smoothie shop called Jewel or Juice. we make smoothies (duh) and Acai bowls. we have about 35 different smoothies, some healthier than others. Some flavors and a lot of unprocessed fruit in them, but others are mainly frozen yogurt and various flavorings.

The Acai bowls however are pretty darn special. I had never heard of an "acai bowl" before coming to Hawaii. i'd heard of acai because of it's new popularity as a "superfood" and the store i worked at sold it in frozen packs. it is a berry from the Amazon, it is small and dark bluish purple like a blueberry, but with a large seed inside.
our company website explains this: http://www.jewelorjuice.com/

and it is touted as having a ton of antioxidants and vitamins and amino acids and all that good stuff. in brazil the fruit of the acai is blended with apple juice and served with toppings. our basic blend has acai, banana, apple juice, and strawberry. (everything but the juice it prefrozen) it all blends in to a purple, creamy mixture that we top with banana, granola, fresh strawberries, blueberry , honey... it's pretty yummy!


other than the granola you are basically eating a bowl of condensed fruit and it is very filling. (our local competator adds ice to thin their mixture and then changes more for it. boo!)

many customers like to eat a bowl for lunch. some claim to feel more energized. :) i liken the taste of the blend to blackberries with less tartness. so when you add the sweet honey and crunchy granola, i suppose it's a bit like a frozen berry pie!

we have a few variations on the acai blend, including acerola, which is a whole different thing i could just explain in another post.

anway i am enjoying my job and the time goes by faster when we have more customers, so come in and have a treat!

the banana that is an apple

i have seen a few variations of bananas before.. plantains, fingerlings, red bananas (which i havent tried) but i hadn't heard of apple bananas until i moved to Hawai'i.

i actually saw them in the safeway first, and then a housemate brought home a huge bunch of short, green bananas.

he is a pest exterminator and a client gave these to him. i think they were having trouble with ants infesting the banana tree. anyway, he hung the to ripen outside.




these are apple bananas, also known as silk bananas, candy apple bananas, and latundan bananas.
their wiki page:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latundan_Banana

these were my observations: they are about half the length of the banana we are used to seeing, have a thinner peel. the smell i thought was a little "green and grassy" smelled like it wasn't ripe yet. but it obviously was.


although this website says i should have waited until the peel was black: http://www.specialtyproduce.com/index.php?item=2050

the taste was yummy. sweeten than other bananas. almost like it was banana candy flavored. :D but it was over in about 3 bites, so you'd better have two.


they have their own website! http://www.applebananas.com/ and claims they have "3 times more Vitamin C and 1-1/2 times more Vitamin A than your regular banana varietes" also they charge 40 bucks to deliver 10 bananas?! holy crap! so i guess the bunch our friend has is worth like $150. although i think that website is making up some scarcity inflation something. next time they are at safeway, i'll check on the price, but i think it was closer to $4 a pound, not 12.

i still don't quite get the "apple" connection, but apple bananas are delicious.

yee-ha, Arkansas.

this is a variety of apple called Black Arkansas. it is a lovely dark color and seems to come with an oily,waxy covering. i've only ever seen them in the produce department at my co-op.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v713/feffy88/raw%20foods/IMG_1158.jpg

it was very popular, and customers would come back and by bags of them. i didn't find them too miraculous, but they were good. not too tart but not supersweet. i noticed the inner flesh had a greenish tint to it.

Consider... the medlar.

I've been meaning to mention the medlar for some time now. i got to try one and i am not sure i had ever heard of one before. It is a tree-grown fruit. Temperate zone, well at least not tropical. I think it was more popular long ago, like a 100 years ago or more. before we could have apples delivered everywhere all year round.




i can sorta see why this fruit fell out of fashion. like persimmons, it is meant to be eaten it is pretty overripe and mushy. there is a special word for this term...ah, "bletting" decaying and fermenting.
anyway, despite its possible decaying or fermenting, i didn't think the medlar was particularly sweet or sour. I described it as bland applesauce. so it was a leather outside, mushy inside with a few large flat seeds (kind like curved wooden dimes).

so i don't know what people used this fruit for traditionally? just plain? in a pie? it would be a pain to prepare a bunch as an ingredient, unless you just smashed a bunch in a bucket and put it through a sieve to get the mush away from the seeds and skins.

so that is the medlar, plucked from history.

The Merliton a.k.a. chayote a.k.a "frowny fruit"

this is the Merliton, also known as chayote, and about a dozen other names. it's eaten both fresh and cooked. i looked for a few minutes for some recipes, and glanced over some phrase like "peeling a whole chayote is hard on the hands." but i took that to mean it was a hard skin to peel off.
but when i took my peel to it, i discovered what they meant. after you take off a piece of the skin, the flesh exudes some droplets of liquid like a carved pumpkin might. a little slimy, but i just washed it off in the sink. anyway, by the time i was done making the salad, my fingers that had touched the liquid were very dry, peely even.so there must be some skin irritating compounds as a defense against predators.




tastes like a cucumber without the bitterness, center seed thing seemed edible, like a big flat almond.
I made a salad with with carrot, chayote, and golden delicious apples (half of each). then dressed with a little olive oil, grind of seasalt and a squeeze of lemon for brightness.
it was very fresh and light. :D

Produce Freakshow

Since i have been a little behind on posting about food i've been making, here's some unusual flora eye candy.


In honor of Halloween this week, THE GREAT PUMPKIN!
175 pounds, and 87 inch circumference, this beast is sitting outside my store, to be raffled off in two days. I'd have joined the raffle, but what the hell would i do with it if i won?



next up, a dragonfruit! i guess my produce department bought two of them and opened up one to sample. and sold the other to a customer for 16$ ( this guy also wants to buy a case of starfruit. tropical fruit fetish?)
anyway, the dragonfruit is shockingly bright inside. like it is filled with florescent purple highlighter dye. it taste was surprisingly watery and not really very sweet or sour.



another case of gigantism. this is my coworker, holding a giant zucchini that we brought back from the cow farm.


that was the largest of three huge zucchinis just sitting on the ground. and farmer Don was like, "oh, do you want those? just take em." i was gonna take home one of the smaller ones, but i realized it was likely too woody to be edible, and a hassle to butcher it up.

and the anticolorful, a ghost tomato. i got this for free from work, it was a little over the hill. it's just a type of heirloom tomato, which in my experience are less acidic that conventional tomatoes.

i tried saving the seeds, there weren't too many. maybe someday i can grow some ghosties of my own.