When I was young, the only fruit in our house were apples, bananas, grapes, and oranges. Sometimes canned peaches. That was it.
I’m needing to expand my horizons.
I do eat blueberries, raspberries, and starfruit.
Notice that all listed are pretty much open mouth/insert fruit.
How do you eat fresh peaches? Peel them? What about plums?
C’mon- tell me what we should try (and how do you prepare it?)!
Since I lost the weight and changed my eating habits, fruit has become one of my favorite things. And I have to say, you have the basics down - open mouth, insert fruit.
I don’t peel apples, pears, peaches, plums…basically, I only peel the really thick skinned fruits - oranges & bananas.
In terms of preparation - I stick with mostly raw. They are wonderful as they are - no need for fancy preparation! I will core/pit and slice apples, peaches, strawberries and pears - and eat them with a fork, believe it or not - makes it feel special. Bananas are good straight - but sliced down the middle and spread with peanut butter, they are awesome.
Favorite fruits are definitely the berries - blueberries & raspberries the most, although with the fresh strawberries in now, I will eat them by the pound. Kiwis & mangos are fun because of the tropical sense of them - and sliced melon can be so sweet. Blueberries are touted as the healthiest fruit - so since you eat them now, you’re ahead of the game. Since you say you eat starfruit, have you tried kiwis? You might want to peel them - although that is not necessary. I usually just slice them, but you can also slice off the top and eat with a spoon, from what I have heard.
Try to stick with fruits that are in season. Although now I am seeing clementine oranges out, which I have usually thought of as a winter favorite! If you want to sneak in extra fruit make smoothies with yogurt, milk, and/or small amounts of fruit juice.
Fruit is wonderful - and I don’t want to sound lame, but for me it has become nature’s candy. There really is a variety out there - and even a variety of flavors within each type - think of all the varieties of apples (Pink Lady is good, although I go for a nice golden delicious - maybe microwaved with a slice of cheeze-food on top, for a calcium kick). Just go and look - see what calls to you!
Susan
I don’t peel peaches, but you can. They are best eaten leaning over the sink or a handy trash can so that the juice doesn’t run down your arms. If they aren’t that juicy, they aren’t worth eating at all.
I don’t care for plums.
What about melon? It’s melon season now, so you should be able to find some good ones. Choose ones that are heavy for their size. Canteloupe seems to be best when it has a slight yellowish cast to the rind.
I also like mangos and fresh figs.
Mangos can be eaten when they are slightly soft to the touch. Stand it up on end and slice downward slightly off center–the pit takes up a lot of room. Then do the same on the other side.
Figs you just eat, except for the stem. They should be soft, but not split.
1/2 cup of dried fruit makes a pretty filling snack, so there’s another option.
Most fruits have a lot of goodies (healthwise) in the skin, so peeling is a waste of nutrients, and if the skin is too tough to comfortably eat, the meat of the fruit is probably going to taste like crap anyway.
Peaches and plums are fine to eat right around the pit, as you’d eat an apple. If you prefer to cut them in half then pop the pit and stems out, that works too. Cut 'em slices, cut 'em in cubes, do whatever.
Also consider kiwi (also another peeling optional fruit, fuzziness notwithstanding the skin is yummy), which can be simply sliced and eaten, the seeds are soft and entirely edible. And then there’s the entire melon family, oh! Canteloupes and honeydew and watermelon, oh my! Get a cantaloupe – smell the stem end and if it smells sweet and fruity, it’s ripe – and cut it in quarters. Scoop out all of the seeds, then very very lightly sprinkle the quarter with salt. Eat with a knife and fork, cutting the flesh away from the rind and then in chunks. Ahhhhh, delicious. Honeydew can be treated in the same fashion.
If you can pick up some watermelon chunks from your grocery salad bar or deli department, you can do them up a few different ways and see what floats your boat. Try a little salt on one batch, then sugar on the next, pepper on the next, lime juice on the next and if you’re really adventurous, balsamic vinegar on the next! Mm, good eats.
Happy fruiting!
EAT THE MANGO!!! :eek:
I love peaches and their non-fuzzy cousins, nectarines. My preference is to eat them like an apple but occasionally I like them sliced with a bit of milk and Splenda. I also eat bananas, oranges, pears, mellons and apples. I also like grapes and all the berries. I try to buy fruit that isn’t quite ripe so that it lasts much longer at home. (Except for strawberries where you are SOL if they aren’t ripe when picked). There are several brands of applesauce out there that are made with Splenda and come in little snack cups. They keep forever. If you like cereal, fresh fruit sprinkled among the flakes is awesome!
If you’d like some Advanced Fruit Preparation, here’s how to buy and prepare a whole pineapple! Of course, you can get it canned, or fresh in chunks or rings from the grocery store, but the fresher the better and fresh pineapple is really quite amazing. Just got back from Hawaii, where the pineapple is incredible.
Selecting your pineapple: Unlike some fruits, a pineapple will not ripen once it’s picked. So once you buy it, eat it soon. Look for a pineapple with fresh-looking, compact leaves - don’t worry too much about the color, but you don’t want one that looks dry or wrinkly or old. The bottom should yield to medium-ish pressure, but the big thing is that it should smell sweetly pineapplish, not fermented. It should feel heavy for its size, kind of like a lemon. It should definately have no soft spots.
Preparing your pineapple: Take a sturdy, sharp knife. Cut off the top and the bottom (if you’re feeling wacky, you can try growing the top into a whole new pineapple plant! It only takes something like a year and a half to grow one lousy pineapple out of it!) Now that the pineapple has a flat base, start slicing off the skin in a downward motion, following the curve of the fruit. The idea is to take off the hard outside without taking off all the good pineapple, of course. Be sure that you slice far enough in to take out the eyes, which are the hard and woody bits that go “in” to the fruit. If you miss some, you can dig them out with your knife or the “dig-the-eye-part” of a potato peeler.
Now you’re left with a yellow cylinder of pineapple. This still isn’t all good to eat! There’s a fibrous core in the middle. There’s such a thing as a pineapple corer that makes it easy to take out, but if you don’t have one, you can just slice your pineapple away from the core. I’ve done it like you do an apple - quarter the pineapple and then cut off the “tips” off each quarter.
If you’re interested in the juice, do all of this on a platter or in a bowl or something to catch it - don’t forget to squeeze the juice out of the hard bits you cut off, either. Enjoy your fresh pineapple!
Or, um, just buy it already cut up for you. There’s no shame in that But don’t feel unneccessarily intimidated by the whole fruit! It’s really not that hard to deal with, it just looks intimidating.
Now artichokes, can’t help you there.
Blueberries are really good for you, so you’re doing OK. How about Kiwi Fruits? - some people eat the skin and modern cultivars seem to be less hirsute, but I have a cunning method for peeling them: Slice off both ends with a sharp knife, then, insert the rounded back of a teaspoon into the fruit at one end, just under the skin - you can sort of ‘roll’ the kiwi around with your thumb and the back of the spoon separates the skin fron the fruit. Repeat at the other end and squeeze and out pops your peeled kiwi with very little waste.
Peaches and nectarines I just slice them all the way around, starting along the ‘cleavage’ then twist and they should come free of the stone, unless they are a ‘cling’ variety, which I loathe - trying to eat then off the stone always results in grazed gums for me.
Watermelons - just crunch up the pips along with the flesh - it only takes the slightest bit of getting used to and the seeds are good for you.
Tell me why you like starfruit - on every occasion I’ve tried it, it has been a complete waste of time, tasting like a cross between cardboard and grass clippings.
Oh, I almost forgot; if you can get hold of a custard apple (or Cherimoya), go for it - buy one that is fairly hard, green and unblemished and let it ripen in your fruit bowl (it will develop little brown flecks on the outside and will ‘give’ slightly when pressed) - it is chock full of hard, inedible seeds, but well worth the fiddle - just slice it in half and eat with a spoon - if you like ripe(or tinned) pears and ripe bananas, you’ll like custard apples (even though they aren’t really much like either pears or bananas).
Just moved to Houston and have discovered and new fruit available that I had never heard of before.
**Pluot **
http://www.davewilson.com/br10/chart_pluot_aprium.html
Cross between a plum & apricot
Very Good!
Mangoes, papaya and pinapple are great.
Pluots are wonderful. I love trying different fruits. How about an Asian pear? It’s easy to eat and might put you in mind of an exotic apple.
Would you consider dried fruit? I recommend it unsulfured and unsweetened. Dried pineapple rings and bananas are my favorites.
In Glen Burnie (suburb of Baltimore) where I grew up, there’s a produce stand that grows acres and acres of produce, then sell them right there. For about two weeks out of the year, they sell what they call Marigold Melons. These are a hybrid of cantaloupe, which I love, and honeydew, which I tolerate. Somehow, though, the blending of the two produce something that’s miles better than either one. Thankfully, hubby goes down to that area at least once a week, and brings them back for me. I have some chunks of marigold in the fridge right now, and eat one or two chunks every time I open the fridge for anything.
I also buy sweet dark cherries, frozen (no sugar added). I’ll put a handful of them in a little dish, and snack on them, still semi-frozen. Very refreshing in the summer time!
I make parfaits with sugar-free vanilla pudding (prepared) layered with frozen cherries and blueberries. In addition to being healthy, it looks pretty in clear stemmed glasses.
I also like fried apples: core and slice about 4 or 5 apples (don’t peel them, though). Melt two Tbsp. of butter in a heavy skillet. Throw in the apples, sprinkle with a couple packets of Splenda and plenty of cinnamon. Stir until tender. This serves 5 people, and I generally use gala apples.
Apple-berry compote (also works well with pears instead of apples): core and dice apple; put in microwave safe bowl with a Tbsp of butter, and a couple packets of Splenda and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Microwave on high until almost tender, stirring occasionally. When the apples (or pears) are nearly tender, add some thawed frozen berries (whatever you like; I find buying them frozen allows me to economically keep a much wider variety on hand), and microwave some more until the apples are tender and the berries are nicely warmed. This can be used as a side-dish or served warm over vanilla ice cream (yum).
Apple-strawberry salad: Put about 2/3 C. of sliced strawberries in a food processor (I use the mini kind) with a few packets of Splenda. Make a puree of the berries. Slice about 3 bananas and 1/2 lb. of strawberries in a bowl; toss with the strawberry puree.
If you can still get cherries where you are - particularly Rainier cherries - go for it. They aren’t long in season, but they are wonderful fresh, and easy to eat. Just pop in mouth, spit the pit out.
And clementines. Usually we’ve only got those here around the November/December time frame, but we can get them in 5-lb. boxes then and we eat ourselves silly. They’re essentially the fresh version of a mandarin orange - small, seedless, sweet and delicious. They also smell wonderful and are easy to peel. Tangerines are similar, but not quite as good.
Norinew, that is the best news I’ve heard all day, and this was a pretty good day. Can’t wait to try it.
Where my mom grew up, in PA, they were called “Oxharts.” But they are delicious. Pink and cream colored rather than red.
Don’t forget raisins, prunes, dates, dried cherries and dried pineapple. I also love fruit pies – I make a wonderful apple pie with raisins and brown sugar, and I am in love with strawberry-rhubarb pie.
And cut up fresh fruit is very good served in a stemmed glass with Chambord or Amaretto or creme de cassis poured over it. I like to use pears, cantaloupe, kiwi, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, grapes, oranges, apples, grapefruit, pineapple. A bit of coconut of some nuts add a nice crunch.