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| My O My Puh-PIE-ya ! |
I wanted to like this fruit - a lot! First off say the word - papaya (puh-PIE-ya). Isn't that fun? And the fruit looks fun. Its kind of big, not watermelon big - but good size. It starts off a pretty green - think watermelon green. And then you cut into this fruit and it has the coolest looking seeds inside. They are perfectly singular and look like squishy BBs. Their black color stands out very distinctively from the mellow salmon color background. I have heard great things about these seeds - WHEN dried out. They take on a peppery flavor that goes great with sweet dishes or a good rub for meat. So I've been told. But as a word of warning that must be their flavor when they're dry. My experience as they were fresh from the newly sliced papaya was that they tasted like a squishy bitter caper - tangy with a nail polish remover bitter aftertaste. Not all that yummy - to me at least. And perhaps the size of a papaya made me reminisce about tough produce to slice in half or peel (Turban squash, anyone?). This was not the case as my knife slid through very easily and the peeler slid smoothly removing the peel from around the fruit.
My initial taste of the papaya was mushrooms. Now I admitted to my husband what I am admitting to you. I might have picked up on the taste of what was cooking in our kitchen as I was disecting and investigating our new fruit of the week. In our kitchen cooking was the fixings for steak fajitas with red bell pepper, onions, sirloin tip, and nice thick portabella mushrooms. YUM is the right word for this. So there is a tasty aroma floating around me that at first covered up the mild flavor of the papaya. Because I love mushrooms but a fruit the color of papaya shouldn't taste like them. After a new consensus between both mine and my husband's palette we agreed the fruit tasted more like a cantaloupe. This made more sense in my mind. What would you do with a papaya?
We saw great recipes online - some cooking, some raw, but honestly we tended to be missing out on key ingredients. For instance in a few recipes I found the ingredient - jaggery. Ummm I have no idea what this is. So with my line of logic I had to assume we did not have any jaggery in the house. There were great tropical salads, and dessert goods, and more salads (lots of salads!) but a lot wanted to include fresh coconut and other tropical goodies that again aren't in our house as I looked up the recipe. And as we were less than an hour away from dinner I was trying to keep ingredients local like within my own kitchen local :) I decided to go the blender route.
Again I should stress I am not really a cook nor a chef nor a person with kitchen talent. Another reason I married my fabulous hubby who keeps me from losing my way and keeps my tummy full. He is great in a kitchen (So great I really would love for him to become a professional chef - but then he probably wouldn't want to cook for me and our son as that is what he would do all day at work- which means cereal anyone? :)
So after that tangent you are probably thinking anyone can use a blender. Oh how I chortle in your general direction. My blender and I have had several catastrophic messes. And I may have used the wrong part here or there. So as I am assembling our three piece blender (base, container with blade attached, and top) I did ask my husband at least twice if I was putting it together right. A lot of our time together is having this exact conversation -
He laughs a big laugh. I ask "What?" His response always includes a shaking of the head and the one-word response "You". I still to this day don't really understand how his response answers my question. But I chuckle for the conclusion and we carry on with our activity.
So now I have the blender together. We are missing a key ingredient pineapple. There are only four ingredients and we are missing one. But we forge ahead. We toss in our peeled papayas in small chunks and two diced bananas and a dash of milk. This was okay as a smoothie kind of drink but lacked a little bite. Bananas and papayas were both mild flavors and then so is milk. We added about eight - ten strawberries with a sprinkle of cinnamon. The strawberries added a touch of sweetness and sour and the hopes were that the cinnamon would add a little warmth. Still not quite the taste we were looking for so we added two capfuls of lemon juice to bring out a bit of the bite and a bit more milk to smooth out the texture. It was okay. I would like to try it with coconut milk and pineapple next time to give it more the tropical flavor and also maybe yogurt to give it a smoother consistency.
But the big news is my o my we ate papaya :) It is always fun to spend time in the kitchen and tackle the new produce item. Because there is nothing like learning about food firsthand. Don't be afraid to try new flavors - new techniques - at worse you may not eat your five dollar purchase. But will definitely learn your money's worth about what works and what doesn't for your palette and possibly your self esteem :) Its one thing to read a recipe, see a cooking show, but nothing like getting your hands dirty, giving it the ol' college try, and hopefully having fun!
May your HealthFULL journey offer you wisdom and laughter through experience, attempts, and successful endeavors. 'Til we meet again. . .
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