Nature's High

All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: Freedom, Justice, Honor, Duty, Mercy, Hope, Smoothies.

Juan’s mom and I made a quick trip to the fruit and veggie market the other day and while we were meandering around we came up a fruit I didn’t recognize.  This is pretty common for me.  There are lots of tropical fruit that I have no idea what they are.  It wasn’t the pear shape that interested me, nor the yellow color, it was the aroma.  Now when I say aroma what I really mean is the drug like effect it had on my senses.  No word of a lie, this fruit has an euphoric effect.

Guayaba or guava in English. My new love!

The new focus of my desire is called guayaba, or in English guava.  I’ve tried it  before in a jelly fruit candy.  The smell isn’t the same, but I had a general idea of the taste.  Anyway, for the rest of that morning we drove around with them in the car and all I  kept thinking was, this could be bottled and sold as a natural anti-depressant.  Well I guess eating them is easier than bottling and the nutritional value is outstanding!

The new anti-depressant?

I decided to make a batido (or a smoothie).  I cut the fruit length wise and cut them into cubes, like I do with mangoes.  This by the way, is the wrong way. Juan’s mom came into the kitchen and told me that I needed to peel the skin like a potato and then cut it into smaller pieces.  I was just going to throw everything into the blender willy nilly, but this is also incorrect.  After cutting the guava and placing it in the blender, you need to add a lot of water and blend on high.

Mashing the pulp.

The next step is to put the juice through a sieve and mash all the pulp out.  This process also removes  the seeds, which by the way are as hard as little pebbles.

Look at all of those seeds!

I also decided to add some papaya. This is something I wish I liked more, but I can’t get over the smell. The color, on the other hand is something that I love!  I put it in smoothies because it’s supposed to be SO good for you.

A bin full of papayas.

The last thing I put was an apple. I had no idea if this combination would work, but I thought, What the hell?  It won’t be that bad.

The tart component to balance the sweetness.

And it wasn’t!  Actually, it kind of tasted like a mild bubble gum.  I think next time I’m going to add passion fruit to my guava juice.  You know, there are a million different possibilities here!

Voila!