Food: The Wonderful World of Fruit

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The Wonderful World of Fruit
Friday, April 14, 2006

I've been trying to eat more fruit lately. Like most people, I like the taste of fruit. I know it's low in calories, high in vitamins and just plain good for me too. It's just that eating some types of fruit is too much work. Take watermelon, for instance-- and all those seeds.

Sure, if you're looking for a quick snack, it's easy to grab a banana or pop a few grapes in your mouth. But while exploring the wonderful world of my supermarket's produce section one day, I came across of a plethora of more exotic fruits that I had never even tried. I didn't even know what to do with some of them.

Take the pomegranate, for instance. Rich in color and flavor, it's an intimidating fruit. I know all about the health benefits of pomegranates. The pomegranate is right up there with blueberries when it comes to antioxidant power, it's a true super food. But I have no idea how to eat one.

Kiwi is another one. I recently hosted a party where I served a fruit tray. I wanted to include a few different fruits besides the usual strawberries and grapes, so I bought a few kiwis. Boy are they small! I wasn't even sure how to peel and slice them. so I had to look online to make sure I was doing it right. The kiwi turned out to be a big hit, by the way.

Mangoes are delicious and I have had mango salsa before. But I realized I had never just eaten a plain mango. Mango is easy to slice and my kids actually thought it was cantaloupe at first when I presented them with cut up chucks of it on their lunch plates one day. Anyway, mango is a new favorite in my house.

Pineapple. I'm from the school that buys pineapple in a can. A pineapple is the most intimidating fruit I have ever come across. But for my recent party, I felt it would be tacky to use canned pineapple-- people would be able to tell! So I took a leap of faith and bought a fresh pineapple. I was thrilled to find that complete instructions on how to cut the thing were on a tag attached to the pineapple. That made my job a lot easier. Cutting it was harder than I thought, though-- I wasn't sure which parts to throw out. And it definitely didn't look as pretty as the canned pineapple. Still, it tasted fresh and absolutely yummy.

So now that I've ventured out and tried a few new fruits, I'm looking for new ways to eat them. Fruits salad is a great side dish to serve-- especially in the hot summer months. It's also a great party food-- it goes great as a side dish at a barbecue or a picnic. I like fruits salad because it can be made ahead of time and kept in the refrigerator. Some good fruits to include are cantaloupe, grapes, strawberries, pineapple, raspberries, mandarin oranges and blueberries.

Fruit smoothies are a great way to start off your day-- and you can use just about any kind of fruit imaginable. I like to make smoothies for breakfast when we have a lot of fruit to get rid of—I've even been known to blend up some leftover fruit salad to make smoothies. You can add juice to your fruit mixture or something thicker-- like plain or vanilla yogurt. Blend it in the blender and drink up!

My neighbor likes to make fruit salsa. You can cut up all of your favorite fruits and use it as a topping for Mexican dishes or to dip tortilla chips in. My neighbor also makes homemade cinnamon-sugar tortilla chips too, but that's another story. She uses apples, pineapple, strawberries and mango in her fruit salsa and it's always a hit

Oh, and for an extra special addition to a fruit platter, try making a dip to dip the fruit in. Fruit dip is especially good when you are serving solid fruits like strawberries, cherries and grapes. Other f fruits, like melon, are a tad harder to dip. A friend of mine makes phenomenal fruit dip by combining a cube of softened cream cheese with a small tub of marshmallow fluff. After it's beaten with a mixer, it comes out light and fluffy-- the perfect sweet addition for fruit dipping!

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