A lesson on local fruits

This past week we celebrated a year of living in Hawaii! (This is the longest time Josh and I have lived in one house since being married and the longest time I've gone without travelling out of one state since I was 13!)

One of the obviously nice things of living here has been the availability of frest, tropical fruits. We have several Farmer's Markets nearby where we end up getting most of the local produce. Some of our predictable finds are: pineapple, mangoes, (we have a mango tree, but it only produced about ten mangoes - all Hawaiian mangoes didn't do too well this year - but if you can get one, they are DELICIOUS! The mangoes sold in the grocery store are from Mexico....can you imagine?) and veggies like onions, cucumbers, avacados and lettuce.

However, to acquaint our mainland friends and family with a few of our interesting discoveries, we've gathered the following fruits and photos!

First...these might not look so unique. Bananas! But they aren't regular bananas. They are APPLE BANANAS! They are very small and stocky and are sweeter than normal bananas. They are perfectly sized for chubby toddler hands!

Next is not necessarily a tropical fruit, but our tree is growing well here. FIGS! The bigger, softer and paler they get, the better they are! All four of us just love these....if we can get to them before the birds do!

And this strange creation? LILIKOI (in Hawaiian) or passion fruit. They grow on long vines that usually drape over yard walls and fences. They feel almost like styrofoam with a hollow center, but when you cut into them, you can scoop out a delicious, tart treat...eating seeds and all! If you remove the seeds, you can make all kind of things with the pulp - lilikoi butter, syrup, jam, lilikoi chiffon pie, etc. (But each fruit only yields less than 1/4 cup of juice, so you need to collect quite a few to make anything.) We like to add it to fruit salads or on top of vanilla ice cream. And...if that didn't look strange enough...take a peek at this odd fruit! DRAGON FRUIT! We saw these in Qatar, too. They are not native to Hawaii, but they sure make the fruit stands interesting and colorful! The thick hot-pink peel folds back to reveal a sweet, but kind of strange tasting center that is about as firm as a canteloupe. No one really cared for this on its own, but in fruit salad or blended in a tropical smoothie, it tastes okay.

But...our all-time super favorite tropical fruit (which just happens to be bounteous right now) is the STAR FRUIT! If you can find them when they are yellow/orange like the one below, you will think you are eating candy. You can eat it just like an apple, skin and all. Or, when slicing, you can eat it in stars. We had one in the last batch that had a six-pointed star. Delicious!