mayurisjikoni

Its time to jam     One of my hubby's friend owns a farm. He often comes to supply the surplus produce to the greengrocer that I usually go to if I don't go to the market. He gives me either vegetables or papayas whenever I go there. Last week he insisted that I take 3 huge papayas. They all ripened at the same time. Now there is so much papaya one can eat. So the next option was smoothie or a jam. Smoothie didn't sound too exciting, especially when the tummy is full. I am glad I made the jam. Its so easy to make it. I should stop buying the local jam as there is no fruit in it, its too sweet, full of colour and citric acid taste. I used less sugar, but it tastes just right. You may wonder why I have added cumin powder. Papaya for our family means papaya, a pinch of salt on top and a liberal helping of the cumin powder... yum! I have used a recycled jar. I usually keep all the glass jars. So I have a variety of them, coffee jars, olive jars, etc. I just dip the clean jar in...

Fruit or a Salad --or what? Have you ever spent your precious time and money trying to buy just the right papaya or paw paw? I have and still do. I always turn them  around to check if it will be the right one, try to weigh them in my palm to see if its heavy or light, whether it will ripen well or not etc etc.  Some say if the papaya is heavy then its good, if it is oval shape then it will be sweet. You can buy any shape and its all  like a pot luck. Some are extremely sweet and some can be unbearably spongy and bland. Now if you folks living in UK have spent pounds buying the precious tropical fruit and it turns out really bland you either have the option of eating it just the way it is or turning it into a delectable dish.... a salad. Yes, a salad, not the raw papaya thai style salad but a ripe papaya salad. PAPAYA SALAD Serves 2 1½ to 2 cups papaya cubes ¼ cup finely chopped onion, red or white 1 tbsp chopped spring onion ½ cup diced cucumber ¼ cup diced red...