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| Guavas ripening |
They are a small, tangy tasting fruit with seeds inside that you just swallow.
Guavas are a fruit loved by our native wood pigeons (Kukupa, Kereru), they can get quite drunk on them. I don't mind sharing anything with woodpigeons.
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| NZ native wood pigeon Photo credit |
This year we are starting to get enough of a crop that I was able to make that old childhood favourite - guava jelly. I wasn't going to bother, remembering how my mother used to make it by hanging a bag of the cooked fruit and letting the liquid drain into a bowl, before adding sugar to it and reboiling - it seemed like a bother. I remember her telling me not to squeeze the bag because it would make the jelly cloudy.
Well I just squashed the pulp in a strainer using a masher - and it turned out perfectly fine. It probably wouldn't win a prize at the Womens' Institute, but it looks good enough.
So this is how I did it:-
Guava Jelly
Trim the guavas and cut them in half. Add enough water to cook them, but not covering them. Cook until stewed and soft, then push the juice out of them using a masher and sieve (or a hanging muslin or calico jelly bag if you want to be correct about it). Discard the pulp.
For each cup of juice add a cup of sugar and boil gently until a blob on a saucer wrinkles when pushed (about 25 minutes).
Bottle into sterilized jam jars.
If you are too snappy and it doesn't set, just reboil it and get to to wrinkle stage (Wrinkles are good here).
Back to the Turmeric Bomb/ Gummy saga
For anyone who read my post on turmeric bombs for inflammation and wants to know how they worked? Well after finding that I was unable to take much of them due to their laxative-like effect, I tried making turmeric gummies, using gelatin, however they still require some coconut oil in the mix to get the turmeric to work efficiently, and I have found they give me the same digestive problem, with no greatly noticeable result. They may work better for other people.
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| Turmeric gummies |
I've had the same experience with turmeric recently so I guess I won't be trying the bombs. Don't need that! I've never tasted guava as they aren't available here, even in my new home in the South. Yours looks so pretty and who cares about clouds in your jelly, Clouds in your jelly. You're so vain ...
ReplyDeleteRemember that song? Now it will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day!
Yes I remember the song :-). We are spoilt with all the wonderful subtropical fruit we get here in Northland New Zealand.
DeleteThanks for the heads up on the Turmeric I was thinking about trying it. Isn't it funny how particular our parents were about the way they made certain foods? Your guavas, and the jelly look delicious. So how to wood pigeons act when they get drunk on the guavas? :-)
ReplyDeleteThe drunk wood pigeons flap about ungracefully, sometimes falling out of the tree. When I was young they would mistake the reflection of the guava trees in the window for the real thing and fly into it, usually breaking the window - that happened a few times.
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