The F.....Word

Deborah Writes

 The F word....I know it sounds naughty right? Well, we all know I can be naughty and nice; but actually today I am going to talk about my two F words...

And now for the letter F....Sesame street come to mind??? So call me corny...

Food and Furniture....

     Hawaii is a wonderful place for food. There are farmers markets that can produce year round. We have one every Saturday in our town just a few feet away from our property, very convenient. In fact, you will find them in practically every town. I also learned that there is a girl who sells from the back of her pickup truck on Fridays at the hardware store in the next town over.   Many people have gardens and grow their own food, some grow too much and sell it or give it away. Other people take the pilgrimage to Kona and go to Costo; even in Paradise we have a Costco.

      I plan to grow my own garden. I purchased some seeds this week so I can get some plants started. I can also buy them already started at the hardware store. Blake planted  a kafir lime tree last year and a 2 dwarf papayas. They have not produced yet; in time they will.

     There are lots of places to get free food . For example on the way to the Dump; which is really just a transfer station for garbage, there is a home that has orange trees in their yard, lots of people do. They have a FREE fruit stand out front of their property, because the tree will just produce more fruit than one family could possible eat. The result too much fruit rotting on the ground attracting fruit fly’s. So people give it away. I am thrilled because we do not have any oranges on our property. So each time I go to take the trash I stop and get about 20 oranges; they are not the pretty ones you see in the stores;however there are so juicy and delicious. I bring them home and with the aid of a simple electric juicer in about 15 minutes I can make fresh squeezed juice for the week.

 The "not so pretty"but delicious oranges

The Juicer

What is left from the juice I made just 2 days ago

     My neighbor Alex gave me the biggest grapefruit I have ever seen. It is really not a grapefruit but some very old breed in the grapefruit family. It has a thick skin and the fruit is only slightly tart. Normally I  am not a fan of the grapefruit but this one I like, its mild. 

Notice the size of the orange

     He also gave me some Lilikoi ( aka passion fruit) they are not very exciting alone since there are seedy and tart, but you can make a sugary concoction called Lilikoi butter; made with the fruits, butter , sugar and eggs; the consistency is a lot like thick honey when done. Its a fair bit of work and I can see why it is spendy to buy. Blake likes it and if I purchase it at the farmers market it is $7.50 for a pint size jar. I figure, what the heck I can make this. So I have have processed the fruit and frozen it for now and I hope to make it next week.

We have a huge avocado tree on our property. We had to have it seriously pruned to make room for our house. It was a painful decision to do this. We had so many avocados!! hundreds of them. We gave away as many as we could and still had huge amounts. In hindsight,  I am glad we had to prune it for now. I had a hard time finding people to take them from me. Next year I will build my own FREE fruit stand; assuming I have more than I can use or give away.

I took about 30 of my avocados and I pureed them. Then I turned it into ice cream. Its amazing! Tastes like a fudge bar. I created my own recipe based on ones I saw on the internet. I used baking cocoa powder, some cane sugar and some coconut milk beverage. Pureed all this together and froze it. Later after it was frozen; I cut it into squares. This same recipe, not frozen tastes and looks like chocolate pudding. It takes much of the guilt out of eating a treat..

 Tree-Before pruning

 abandoned bird nest in tree

The tree after the pruning

                               

 Pureed Avocado

 Avocado chocolate pudding

 Avocado chocolate pudding-sooner to be frozen into fudge bars. Yum!

Furniture- I am just going to show some of the furniture to you that you have not seen yet. Now that our Ohana is comfortable I will slow down looking for stuff; unless I find great things at the dump that I can redo. Here are some pieces you have not seen yet.

 Getting the free chair from the dump was easy; persuading Blake to stuff it the trunk of the car was another story.

Purchased a new cushion for the chair and now it is terrific;but not so free but worth it.

 Bookcase in Ohana- Before

 A bit of fabric and it becomes a functional room divider.

$4.99 at the goodwill

Gecko enjoying the fresh apple I just peeled.

 Now he wants Coffee!