Fruits of the Season

I have just started to read about how to harvest and cook nopales. Anyone have a favorite way of getting rid of the thorns?
The lemon trees are so productive, we cannot keep up with just the windfall (and there are some strong daily winds here, so there is always windfall).
The fig, which had fruit before it had leaves, currently looks like this. I was just reading about figs last night, and I think this is the small first crop, which will be followed later in summer by a larger main crop.
The peach tree has these fruit now.
Below is the fruit on the first apple tree to bloom.

I am now pretty certain that the two trees at the northeast corner of the house are strawberry guavas. My first thought upon tasting them was, "guava-like" especially the texture and seeds inside. However, I couldn't believe guavas would grow in this climate, and also the fruit were much smaller than any guavas I'd ever seen. Other people have agreed that they seemed like guava, but nobody has been completely certain. I just read that there a couple varieties grow in the area, and one is called "strawberry guava." I believe that is what I have. Today I discovered some of the fruit higher up on the tree is quite large. Previously, we'd only seen fruit about the size of cherries.
The picture shows the range in size of these fruit.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think my step-mother just used a vegetable peeler on the thorns of the nopales. She may have peeled the whole paddle. I think she parboiled the catus and then sauted it with onion, then she put it in scrambled eggs. Yummy as I recall.cap

Anonymous said...

You know what, I only just realised your fruit and tree photos look like the ones we took in the NT! :-)

Maggie

Catalin said...

Cap, I made a salsa from the nopalitos after peeling and boiling them. It was good, but not spectacular. I will continue exploring. I will try the vegetable peeler next time. That was in one of the articles, but I used a paring knife, which was more work, I think.

Maggie,
I don't know what you mean by the photos being like the ones we took in the NT. Do you mean, like how everything seemed exotic? Please explain!

Anonymous said...

The bush tucker photos for school programs! :-)

Maggie

Catalin said...

Maggie--you're right! If only I had a cultural consultant to tell me more about my backyard tucker.