Tag Archive: fruit

Testing new melons

Categories:

Fri. July 22, 2011

Once in a while when I go grocery shopping I try to explore a little. A little discovery goes a long way, you know. Last week while I was at the local Real Canadian Superstore I was winding through the produce aisles. I went to fetch a cantaloupe because I wanted some cold melon on hand to help satisfy any cravings for fruit that I might get during the week. Right next to it was what was advertised as a Santa Claus melon.

Odd name, I thought. I was going to pick up a honeydew melon, but instead I was curious and went for this thing. I figured that in the worst case I’d know what it tasted like. At the very least my culinary knowledge would be kind of expanded. When I got home I took the melons out and put them on the counter. I planned on cutting each one up, chopping the flesh into cubes, then chilling it all in the fridge in airtight containers. Good plan. That’s what I usually do with any melon. Saves me a bit of aggravation when I want a hit of melon. Well, let’s just say that it’s been a busy week.

Those melons sat on the counter for a week before I had the chance to tackle them this evening. Well, the cantaloupe didn’t fare well. It was no longer round but concave in a few spots. I tossed the thing. Shame, really. The Santa Claus melon though looked like it was in good shape. With that touch skin, it’s no wonder, right? Wiki says that the melon is known to be able to keep for a really long time. Yeah, there was no way I was going to test that out, so I cut it open.

The flesh looks like a pale yellow-green. When I tasted it, I pinned it somewhere close to honeydew, but kind of softer. This melon has a reputation for being sweet according to Wiki but I wasn’t really feeling it. Maybe I should have let this melon ripen a bit more. It wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t really blown away by it.

Would I get this again? Sure. Maybe I’ll try it again during one of the colder months when it becomes in-season in South America. For me, personally, it’s not going to replace my standbys of cantaloupe and honeydew. The orange and green just go together in my head.

Anyway…knowledge expanded!

Tags: ,

1 comment

Pie observations

Categories:

Fri. June 24, 2011

I summarized my findings about my orange meringue pie experiment on Twitter earlier, but I might as well give a short rundown here.

  1. Orange is tasty, but it’s not strongly acidic or has a strong punch-to-the-face effect. I think it would do better as pie filling if it’s paired with another citrus. I’m sure lemon/orange would be a great combo. I don’t believe it can have a starring role.
  2. When making the filling, it’s supposed to be a thick goo. Adding too much juice makes it too runny. Better to have it thick and hold its place. Only reason I added more juice was because I didn’t find the juice of one orange that effective. So: point 1 leads to point 2.
  3. Less water with the dough means that the dough shouldn’t be sticky. Having not-so-sticky dough means using less flour to coat the surface where the dough is rolled. Using less flour means that the crust won’t be that hard. Important!

Yeah, people liked the pie, but I know that I could have done better. I need to up my game! Reputation to maintain!!!

Tags: , ,

2 comments

Orange cake

Categories:

Sun. December 12, 2010

The last time I went to Wal-Mart I decided to pick up some fruit to snack on from time to time. I’m really in need of more nutritious stuff, you know? I guess I realize that fruit is probably a heck of a lot cheaper down by my workplace, close to Chinatown, but the urge to buy hit my while I happened to be in store. I bought a bag of navel oranges with the full intention of going through the bag by eating them on a regular basis. Well, about two weeks had passed and the bag was still pretty much full on the top shelf of my fridge. Today, I decided to do something about it.

I usually have butter sitting on the counter, ready to go for whenever I have an urge to bake. Seems to be the smart thing to do since I tend to bake relatively often. Good thing I had a cup of butter at room temperature. Knowing butter was ready to go I went online to check out the Food Network Canada website. A quick search on orange related desserts turned up this Orange Cake recipe from Ricardo Larrivée. I honestly don’t recall doing any of his recipes in the past, so I was curious to see how it’d go. I mean, with some other chefs’ recipes I’ve done them enough to know how to adjust things for my purposes. In this case I was kind of going blind.

Well, how did it turn out? I think it turned out really well. The smell is just awesome, and the colour is pleasing to the eye. I think the loaf turned out slightly squat, but I wonder if extra baking powder or more time creaming the butter and sugar would have made a difference. I’ve tasted it, and yes, it’s awesome. I’ll have to be careful not to eat the whole darn thing before the end of the week. Considering I have a couple more oranges, I might do this recipe a few more times. It might serve me well for any times I need to bring food somewhere. We’ll see.

Tags: , ,

2 comments

Cleanser snorting

Categories:

Thu. November 19, 2009

Earlier during the lunch hour I ventured north a couple of blocks to get a haircut and go shopping for fruit. I ran out of fruit a couple of days prior and have been sort of craving for some for a while now. There’s nothing like a cold, crisp, sweet, juicy apple, right? Like I stated about a month ago, Chinatown is a really good place to get produce. Although, things are a little bit more expensive this time of year in comparison to even a month ago. Back then I was able to get 5 Gala apples for $1. Today they were priced at 3 for $1. It’s still pretty decent, if you ask me. Today’s haul was 3 Gala apples, 3 Fuji apples, 6 fuyu persimmons (seem to be more common in colder months), and two small containers of blueberries. To balance out the healthiness of it all I also bought a small box of chocolate Pocky, which I went through with my colleagues faster than I had anticipated.

Anyway, while I was waiting to check out, into the store came this shabby looking woman. I didn’t want to stare, because that would have been rude, but my first judgment of her was that she was mildly unstable. I wouldn’t have paid her any more attention, but she started doing some eccentric things. She looked off to the side and went “AHA!” She reached for a canister of powdered cleanser as if that was what she was looking for all this time. She peeled the protective flap open, poured a tiny bit into her hand and proceeded to sniff it. I think for whatever reason she wasn’t too happy with the product because she put it back muttering something about it not being what she wanted. Right next to it was a canister of Old Dutch cleanser. She took that, popped it open, poured a little out and started snorting it. At this point, the cashier spotted her and start shouting with a bit of an accent: “Hey friend! What are you doing!” You could tell she was annoyed. Rightfully so, too. Who the hell sniffs cleanser? The shabby woman replied, “I’m buying! What does it look like I’m doing?” As she turned around, she revealed her face which was covered in powder like some sloppy junkie, or someone who greedily ate a powdered jelly donut. The cashier rolled her eyes and proceeded to talk to the other cashier in Mandarin (or was it Cantonese…I swear I still can’t tell), likely about this crazy ass woman. The woman queued behind me to buy her Old Dutch, muttering something about people taking away her welfare cheques. All I could do was smile at the cashier, acknowledging that yes, I witnessed the craziness as well.

Just another day in the big city, I guess. *shrug*

Tags: , ,

4 comments

Examining the grocery bill

Categories:

Sat. October 24, 2009

I honestly need to be a little bit more careful when I go grocery shopping. The past few times I’ve gone I’ve ended up buying so much food. You’d think I was preparing for some big approaching natural disaster. OK, so maybe that’s an exaggeration. If I think about it, the last time I went grocery shopping was right after Thanksgiving. Still, was there really any reason me to fill up two of those black PC bags and a green bin? Really.

Perhaps it’s because I’m still in that phase where I’m stocking up on basics. For example, there would be no reason for me to buy olive oil every time I go out, right? That was $5.99. Meat is pretty expensive, too. Luckily one tray of meat tends to last for a few days. I bought bacon and separated it into 3-strip packages prior to freezing it. I don’t eat that daily, so it’ll last for around 3 weeks. Have you tried to buy boxed fish lately? I got a box of High Liner fish fillets, and that cost me $11.49. That’s ridiculous! I think I recall that being cheaper in previous years. Or perhaps I’m thinking of the really oily fish cuts–those tend to be cheaper. Even if they’re cheaper, it doesn’t mean I want them. A few weeks ago I bought a box of English-style haddock fillets. I’m sure that was cheaper than this box. Thing is, holy crap, that fish was ridiculously oily. I had to blot the pieces prior to eating them. Even after that, I just didn’t feel great eating them. In that case, the extra cost is worth it.

I wonder how much this new healthy streak is affecting what I’m getting. Remember how I was talking about buying a lot of fresh fruit before? I got carried away this time as well. Maybe it’s for the best. Some of the fruit I bought last week went bad and I had to bin it. I told myself that next time I get fruit I better work hard to eat it all before it goes to waste. Well, with that much in the fridge, I better make sure to get in the recommended servings of fruits and veggies or else it’ll be like I’m just tossing cash to the wind. Part of the solution is knowing what spoils quickly, and to plan to eat all that as soon as possible.

So, OK. All things considered, I guess I don’t have that much useless stuff on the list. Everything is stashed properly and should hold long enough for me to get to it. It’s part of the price of independence, isn’t it?

Tags: , , ,

2 comments

Loading up on the fresh stuff

Categories:

Wed. October 14, 2009

Ever since I moved out on my own I’ve been making an effort to insert more fruits and vegetables in my diet. It’s so easy to go without, and that’s just a slippery slope once you’re on it. So, I’ve been going through fresh produce at respectable rate. The other day I noticed that I was running out of fruit. The last time I was at the grocery store I bought six apples and a bag of grapes. I ran through the apples pretty quickly; they’re just easy to bring out when I feel like eating something sweet. So, today I made it a point to venture into Chinatown to take advantage of the cheap produce. I didn’t want to go overboard, but in the end, I think I did: 5 red delicious apples, 5 gala apples, 4 navel oranges, bunch of bananas, two avocados. I also got a good amount of dessert tofu. You’d think fruit was going out of style. When I got it home I opened the crisper and noticed that I had a whole bunch of lemons. So, I’ve got a big load of fresh stuff that’s bound to go bad before I get to it all. Boo! Well, looks like I’m going to work harder to make sure none of it goes to waste.

*burp*

Tags:

2 comments

Switch to our mobile site