Fruit Maven » winter

Sky Valley Heirloom Navel Orange

Fruit Maven — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:52:47 +0000

If you think I haven’t been posting enough lately and that I have lost my love of fruit (you are wrong) and…this is the fruit for you!

As I mentioned when I talked about the ever-so-lovely Shasta Tangerine, March fruit just isn’t inspiring me. So please don’t dismay, I haven’t abandoned the blog, but it is going to be tough going for a while until I come across something interesting. I know what you are thinking. A navel orange? THAT is what inspired you enough to come out of the March doldrums and post? Yes indeed. I was wandering through Trader Joe’s and a bag of these were prominently displayed near the front. I tend to look right past endcap displays as I assume it is an overstocked item they are trying to pawn off on innocent marketing victims. But this time it was an orange! And it claimed to be “heirloom”! But, and this is a big BUT, it was pre-bagged. I generally avoid this on principle — I don’t want someone telling me how many of something I have to buy. I am in charge here! But it was “heirloom” (often secret code for absolutely nothing but an extra high price) and I’m bored so I tossed it in my bag and hoped for the best. Grocery store oranges tend to be so dull and lifeless that I can’t even remember the last time I bought one. These are a definite standout and if you see them, you should snatch up two bags. Something has to carry us through to April and it looks like it isn’t going to be my witty prose. Sorry.

APPEARANCE 4 out of 5 stars

Medium orange color and size, slightly bumpy skin. Bright orange flesh.

AROMA 4.5 out of 5 stars

Bright, fresh orange scent – not overly strong but not subtle either.

TEXTURE 4.5 out of 5 stars

Thick skin and pith. Perfectly tender and juicy flesh. No seeds!

TASTE 5 out of 5 stars

Ideal acidity with a deep sweet orange flavor.

OVERALL 4.5 out of 5 stars

The pith on this is pretty thick but it isn’t particularly distracting if you don’t get it all removed. That being said, this is the perfect orange to cut in to quarters and just dive right into. Make yourself an orange peel smile because this orange is delightful. The company website claims these are old line Washington navel oranges, which uses a sour orange rootstock that is barely used anymore. Whatever all that means, it equals “delicious” in this case.

FRUIT Orange	PEAK Winter	PURCHASED Grocery Store
VARIETY Sky Valley Heirloom Navel	GROWN California

RECIPES

Civil War Green Olive and Orange Salad with Cumin
Spiced Oranges in Red Wine

Shasta Tangerine

Fruit Maven — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:59:34 +0000

If you think getting through winter is like tromping through the Sahara Desert with no food or water, then this is the fruit for you!

It is March – just about the saddest month for fruit EVER. I am completely bored of citrus and the spring berries aren’t quite ready. By summer I will be swimming in so many delightful bits of fruit that I won’t be able to try them fast enough and Mr. Maven will be threatening to call some sort of goverment agency to come in and find his wife in the pile of cores, pits and rotting fruit flesh in the corner of the dining room. But until then, it is March. Sad, sad fruitless March. But then this weekend I was walking through the grocery store and saw Shasta Tangerines. I literally thought – “Hey another tangerine. WHO CARES.” But I grabbed one (just ONE) any way because I am compulsive like that. Believe me, if I had left without it I would have had to go back. What if that one kind of tangerine was the best tangerine ever and I didn’t bother to pick it up?! Unlikely, but what if?! And it turns that for once, my neurotic nature was right. This is hands down, the best tangerine I have ever had and I promptly went right back to the store and got an entire bag of them. Delightful.

APPEARANCE 4 out of 5 stars

Beautiful deep orange skin and flesh. Slightly larger than most tangerines I have eaten but not quite as big as the average orange.

AROMA 5 out of 5 stars

Extremely strong (can smell it all the way down the hall as it is being peeled), floral, delightful, pure, sweet tangerines.

TEXTURE 5 out of 5 stars

Super easy to peel – the easiest ever!, Very little pith and very few seeds. Juicy juiciness.

TASTE 5 out of 5 stars

Perfectly acidic, perfectly sweet. Pure and floral tangerine essence.

OVERALL 4.75 out of 5 stars

Have I already mentioned that this is my very favorite tangerine so far? Because it most definitely is, and that is saying something because I have tasted somewhere around 15 different kinds including common favorites like Page and Dancy. The shasta tangerine is a deep gorgeous color, insanely easy to peel and it’s bigger than most so you don’t have to peel two just to get a reasonable snack! Also I ate one at work and people were popping in to figure out what I was eating and where they could get one. Extra points for making people jealous of me!!!

FRUIT Tangerine	PEAK Winter	PURCHASED Grocery Store
VARIETY Shasta	GROWN California

RECIPES

10 Ways to Cook with Tangerines

Meiwa Kumquat

Fruit Maven — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:00:48 +0000

If you think candy should include more hurdles in order to enjoy it, like seeds and pith, then this is the fruit for you!

Meiwa Kumquats are not your average kumquat. First of all they are round instead of oval and they are much harder to find. I suppose you could stumble upon them easily if you had access to the ever popular Kumquat Festival in Dade City. This site gives tons of information about the festival such as no date, no location, and a whopping one out of four stars rating. BUT, it is a “fun packed family event that lasts for a day”. Oh – and did I mention it is completely dedicated to Kumquats? Yeah – that’s my kind of event. Where’s my party hat?

APPEARANCE 4 out of 5 stars

Small, round, orange fruit with a good number of seeds.

AROMA 3.5 out of 5 stars

Lightly orange and acidic.

TEXTURE 3 out of 5 stars

Firm, almost crunchy and a bit fibrous. Not particularly juicy.

TASTE 3 out of 5 stars

Nice complicated sweetness with bits of sour juice and a slight bitterness in the peel.

OVERALL 3.38 out of 5 stars

I so desperately want to like kumquats. They are small. You can pop the whole thing in your mouth. They kind of taste like candy with a little splash of sour and bitter grown up flavor. But then there are the seeds. What kind of tiny little fruit that is so perfectly fit for snacking, dares to include 5 or 6 seeds in each bite! GAH! I will admit that this one is sweeter and far more interesting than the more common Nagami Kumquat, but still – the audacity! (Also this claims that Meiwas have very few seeds so maybe I just got a particularly defiant batch.)

FRUIT Kumquat	PEAK Winter	PURCHASED Farmer’s Market
VARIETY Meiwa	GROWN Rainbow, CA

RECIPES

Preserved Kumquats
Tri-Color Winter Salad with Kumquats

Carambola

Fruit Maven — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:06:34 +0000

If you’re so healthy that you do that yoga with the heat turned up to 100 degrees and you feel guilty when you eat strawberries, then this is the fruit for you!

The Carambola, or Star Fruit, comes in tart varieties and sweet varieties. The sweet only has 4% sugar though (compared to a speckled and ripe banana, which can have up to 90% – yee haw!). So I’m thinking this so-called “fruit” really should surrender its title and just slink on over to the vegetable aisle. Perhaps it could just make friends with the rutabagas.

APPEARANCE 5 out of 5 stars

Green and yellow cylindrical fruit in the shape of a star. Lots of brown edges and bruises.

AROMA 3 out of 5 stars

Lightly lemony.

TEXTURE 4 out of 5 stars

Firm, crunchy and juicy – a bit like a firm grape.

TASTE 3 out of 5 stars

This reminds me of a slightly sweet, slightly sour, juicy, lemony bell pepper.

OVERALL 3.75 out of 5 stars

This fruit just screams pizazz the second you see it. And then you taste it…and it mumbles “meh”. On the bright side, it makes an amazing garnish and I’m sure it would liven up dessert soups and salads. But seriously, who cares about salad when you can slice these and put them on the edge of champagne glass. Oooh la la.

FRUIT Carambola	PEAK All Year	PROVIDED BY Specialty Produce
VARIETY Unknown	GROWN California

RECIPES

Pickled Carambola
Dessert Pizza with Mango, Peaches and Star Fruit

Rambutan

Fruit Maven — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 04:58:02 +0000

If you’ve been looking for a replacement for your 80’s style koosh ball, then this is the fruit for you!

APPEARANCE 4 out of 5 stars

Fuschia pink ball with dark, soft spikes. There is a translucent eyeball of flesh inside.

AROMA 4 out of 5 stars

Very mild, subtle sweetness with an earthy undertone.

TEXTURE 2.5 out of 5 stars

Gelatinous, firm and juicy. There is a prominent seed in the middle and the skin of the seed seems to like to stick to the fruit bits, which is annoying.

TASTE 3.5 out of 5 stars

Mild and sweet; Reminds me of apples and cotton candy.

OVERALL 3.5 out of 5 stars

These are certainly a little bite of adventure. I loved digging my thumbs in to the hairy shells and then popping out the gelatinous globe. My inner adolescent was dying to run out of the house screaming and holding my eye in order to terrify the neighbor kids by popping it in my mouth. But alas, Mr. Maven beat me to it.

FRUIT

Rambutan

VARIETY

Unknown

PEAK

Winter/Summer

ORIGIN

Southeast Asia

GROWN

Unknown

PROVIDED BY

Specialty Produce

NOTES

I only had four of these and for some reason (we’ll call it excitement), I was too impatient to research these prior to eating all of them. Yes, all of them. Had I done so, I would have realized these were slightly past their ideal season (Dec/Jan), which probably explains the slightly dark patches. Nonetheless they were delicious. You can see more cool pictures of them and similar fruit here. As a sidenote, I liked them much better than longan.

RECIPES

Asian Tropical Fruit Salad
Rambutan Drink