# Fruits # |
Baking Apples To keep apple skins from cracking while they bake, pare a 1-inch band around each apple's center. Ripening Avocados - An avocado will ripen faster if placed in a plastic bag with a piece of banana peel. - To keep refrigerated avocado dip or half a sliced avocado from |
turning dark quickly, place the avocado pit in the center and wrap to form an airtight seal. Bananas - Extra bananas? You can freeze them either peeled or unpeeled, cut into chunks or mashed, depending on what you plan to do with them. - Here's another wonderful use for ripe bananas: Slice the fruit, place the slices on a baking sheet, and freeze them until firm. Roll each slice in honey and then in your favorite topping, such as chopped nuts, coconut, or crushed rice puffs. Return them to the freezer and when frozen solid, put them into plastic bags and seal. These make wonderful frozen candy snacks. - Pureed bananas can be used in breads and cakes. Overripe bananas--too ripe to eat raw--are particularly good because they're so sweet. - If you bring home a big bunch of bananas that you know you'll be separating and using singly, separate them right away by cutting off the "knob" that joins them all together. Make sure that you cut them so that a 1-inch tip is left on each. This tip will dry up and seal itself in a day or two. Then, when you are ready to use the bananas, you won't have to bother breaking off one at a time, which can often result in splitting the top skin of several and exposing the open parts to bacteria. Grapes Frozen grapes make a fine natural snack: Just lay them out on a baking sheet in the freezer so that they freeze separately, and then bag them for snacking later. Lemons and Limes - You will get almost twice the amount of juice out of lemon or lime if you drop it into hot water for a few minutes before you squeeze it. Heating the fruit breaks down the inner membranes so that they release more juice. Or instead of heating the fruit, try rolling it on a hard surface to break down those membranes. - If you want just a few drops of lemon juice, poke a hole in one end of the fruit with a toothpick. Squeeze the desired amount from the hole, replace the toothpick, and store the lemon in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for future use. - Grate your citrus rind over wax paper or foil to make pouring it into a measuring cup or mixing bowl easy. - Use a pastry brush to remove the citrus rind (or onion, carrot, or whatever) that is stuck in the holes of the grater. Pineapple To keep pineapple fresh longer, cut slices from the bottom as you need them, leaving the green top growth intact. Wrap the unused portion, with the top growth attached, in plastic wrap. Watermelon Got a surplus of watermelon? Scoop the pulp from the rind, removing the seeds as you go. Then run it through a food mill or blender, or mash it with a potato masher. Freeze the smooth pulp in ice cube trays, and you've got wonderful natural fruit pops. Fruit Miscellany - Don't discard the rind of lemons, grapefruit, or oranges. It makes excellent flavorings for cakes, frostings, and such. Wash it well and grate, being careful not to include the bitter white part under the rind. Put it in a tightly covered glass jar and store in the refrigerator. - Leftover apple, orange, or lemon rind can be put into your tea as it's steeping to add a wonderful flavor and aroma----just like the fancy gourmet tea blends. - For a quick dessert, an unsweetened can of fruit can be opened and frozen. When ready to serve, put the frozen fruit in a blender or food processor and spoon it into stemmed glasses. Top it with chopped nuts. - You can make another easy, light dessert by freezing a fresh fruit, like kiwi fruit or melon, and then shaving it into small chilled bowls. - To freeze peaches and other fruits without sugar, use orange juice instead of the traditional sugar syrup. Slice the fruit into thawed orange juice concentrate, making sure the slices are thoroughly coated to keep them from darkening. Two large cans of concentrate will easily do for a crate (about 20 pounds) of peaches. - There's really no need to rehydrate dried fruit before you add it to a recipe, because even the hardest dried raisins or prunes will become soft and moist when cooked in recipes that contain plenty of liquid, like custards, puddings, stuffings, and moist tea breads. - There are several fresh fruits that, when included in a gelatin dessert or salad, will prevent the gelatin from firming up. They are pineapple, figs, papaya, and kiwi fruit. Save them for other uses. - Small berries, such as huckleberries, can be cleaned by gently rolling them back and forth with your hand across a dry terrycloth towel placed on the counter. They will come clean and, as a bonus, they will have lost their little stems, which are so tedious to remove by hand. |
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