Guava, Guava makes you smile

Saying “Guava” your mouth gets a gentle workout.  Your lips go out and then sideways and your mouth ends up in a smile.  Try it.  Your mouth can’t help but smile afterwards.  Guava. Guava. Guava. 

I have a box of guava sitting in my kitchen.  A box of 20 cost Dh 13.95 (US $3.82) at my local co-op.  When they were bought they weren’t ripe yet.  You could tell because they were still green and hard and (most importantly) they didn’t have they wonderful guava scent yet.  But now, after three days, they are slowing turning a pale yellow and their guava scent is slowly emanating from kitchen to the rest of the house.

I am not a huge fan of the guava.  I mostly like it for its wonderful fragrance.  I can’t explain what exactly it smells like, just smells like guava.  See, you just smiled again!

The guavas I have are not excessively sweet and the taste and texture is like that of a pear.  I really have no clue as to how to exactly eat a guava.  I didn’t think that you could eat the seeds but apparently you can.  I thought that eating the tablespoon or so of seeds that a guava contains might get stuck somewhere in the insides of my body and then I would really get sick…maybe appendicitis, inbetween my intestines, or something.  I don’t know.

Anyway, I did I search on how to eat a guava.  You can actually eat the whole thing.  The skin is packed full of vitamin C (wow! who knew?!).  You have the option of eating the seeds or scooping them out with a spoon.  Take a small bite and savour the unique taste and then enjoy the whole thing. 

While you eat a guava (especially if it is winter time where you are), close your eyes and pretend to be sitting on the sand, beneath the wonderful, warming sun, listening to the gentle lapping of the waves…because that is what eating a guava conjures up…the sun, the sand, on a faraway tropical island.

Enjoy a guava.  See made you smile again! 

Here is a link to some recipes from RecipeZaar that contain guava.  Some look very interesting.  Guava Cake?  Guava Flan?

Have a nice day!

Too Old or Too Complicated

Either I am too old or maybe WordPress is just too complicated for me.  Hah!  Don’t answer that.

 

I think I just need to play around with this and get used to all these gadgets.  I don’t like things to complicate my mind though.  I already think too much and have a head full of grey hair to prove it!

A Cup of Tea is Always Better When…

Why does a cup of tea always taste better at someone elses house?  No matter where I go it just does.  If I go and buy tea from a tea stand it does not taste good and I end up throwing it out but tea from a friend’s house always tastes so wonderful.

I have a really good friend from Kenya who makes a very lovely cup of tea.  I enjoy and look forward to going to her house whenever she invites me…mostly for the company but especially for her tea!  I once I asked her for the recipe for this lovely, milky tea and she gave me her recipe, “A little bit of this, a pinch of that, half a can of this, and only a teaspoon of Kenyan tea leaves, and this much water to this point on my pot.”   Well, I don’t know of a place where I can buy Kenyan tea leaves and I don’t have a pot exactly like hers.  So I tried weeks, maybe months trying to duplicate her tea at home.  But it never tasted the same.  Until one day I actually came close.   I will share my recipe with you at the end of this post.

I have another really good friend from Nigeria who just makes a simple cup of tea, the regular Lipton black tea and a few spoons of sugar, and it tastes wonderful sitting there chatting and drinking our tea.  I think the secret ingredient there for a good cup of tea is just her company and the conversation!

Meeting with a Moroccoan customer one time at her home I was given a wonderful cup of very sweet mint tea.  There was another time I visited a khataba (matchmaker)…not for me, mind you but just for business…and I had my first ever cup of saffron tea and it was delicious. 

So, I guess the secret ingredient to a great cup of tea is good friends and people coupled with great conversation.

Morning Tea

3 cups of water

4 tablespoons of sugar

2 tea bags

3 cardamon pods broken with just the seeds added

1 can (170 ml) of evaporated milk

 

In a medium sized pot, bring the water, sugar, and tea bag to a boil.  When the water starts to boil, remove the tea bags and add the evaporated milk and the cardamon seeds.  Bring to a boil again.  Strain into tea cups.  Serve hot.  Enjoy!