Island Variety

A friend of ours gave us lots of stuff. The brown thing in back is a coconut. The yellow thing to the right is a cocoa pod. The yellow things to the left are oranges that are good for juicing. The three strange things in the middle, with the stems are sweet apples (see below). The green things in front are mangoes. The kids actually liked these mangoes so they were eaten in one night. I have another bag that Curvin brought over tonight so we'll see if the kids like those as well. There are different kinds and if they have a fibrous texture we don't like it. I don't like them much anyway so the kids can eat them all.

This is what happens to me when I try to get a coconut open. I threw it on our driveway and the water inside splashed all over me. (Can you see the wet spots on my pants as well as my shirt?) So that's what I looked like and this is what the coconut looked like after it met the driveway.



Linda made some coconut sticky bar stuff. Basically she cut the coconut up into small bits, boiled it in water, added sugar, cinnamon and ginger and then let it thicken up. Then she poured it onto foil and we put it in the freezer. It tastes pretty good but once it's in your mouth it gets very gooey and sticks to your teeth.

This is the finished product. Reminds me of peanut brittle, but with coconut instead. I think if I make it again I'll make the coconut finer and see if what that is like. And maybe I'll cover it with milk chocolate too!

This is what they call a sweet apple. It is nothing like an apple. You cut it in half and then scoop out the seeds. Then you would usually slice it and peel it and eat it that way but ours was too soft for that so we just scooped it all out. There were some strange hard things that came off of the peel and it has a gritty texture. Linda wouldn't even eat it so I wasn't surprised when none of my kids liked it. Oh well, at least they all tried it!