Paw Paw Fruit!

 

Our Paw Paw harvest.

 

Paw Paw trees are native to North America. I have gathered from what I have read that they grow from New York to the Great Plains and as far South as Tennessee. Fun fact: Paw Paw's are the largest, tree fruit, native to the North American continent.

Paw Paw grove.

Paw Paw trees are not very large trees. They grow in the understory of forested areas. They grow in groves, from what I have seen. They are always grouped together.

Paw Paw leaves.

The Paw Paw tree has large leaves. They are similar in shape to Hickory tree leaves. The way to tell them apart is that Paw Paw leaves are smooth around the edges and Hickory leaves have a fine tooth, serrated edge.

Paw Paw fruit growing on a tree in July.

Paw Paw trees have to be 7 or 8 years old to bear fruit. Paw Paw trees have not been grown commercially because the fruits are too perishable to survive shipping. They are ripe for 2 or 3 days and past that point they spoil. The best way to preserve the fruit is to freeze the pulp.

I have only had the pleasure of tasting Paw Paw Fruit once, before this year. It was back when I was a teenager. This year I found a Paw Paw grove at a park close to where we live. I was very excited to be able to try Paw Paw's again! Paw Paw's ripen from August to September. Last week we went to gather some fruit.

Paw Paw's smell very tropical. Very similar to a fresh, ripe pineapple. The skin is green. Inside, the flesh is bright yellow. There are several large, bean shaped, seeds. The flesh is soft and scoop-able. The taste is quite sweet and a little bit like a mango and an American Persimmon.

I wanted to use our Paw Paw's in a recipe so I did some searching online. I tried this recipe for Paw Paw Ice Cream. The results were great. The Paw Paw flavor came through bright and clear.

Paw Paw Ice Cream

1 1/2 cups of Paw Paw fruit puree

2 cups milk

2 cups cream

1 scant cup sugar

5 egg yolks

1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla extract

In a sauce pan heat milk, cream, and sugar until it starts to steam. Temper the egg yolks with the hot cream. Pour tempered eggs into the sauce pan and heat until slightly thickened. Remove from heat. Add Paw Paw puree and vanilla extract. Chill and then freeze in ice cream maker. I didn't have an ice cream maker so I just put it in a bowl in the freezer and took in out to mix every 30 minutes, or there about, until in was frozen to the right consistency.

Have you heard of Paw Paw's before? Have you ever tried them? Let me known in the comment section!

Book Report: Sugar Nation: The Hidden Truth Behind America's Deadliest Habit And The Simple Way To Beat It by Jeff O'Connell

 This book is one that I am revisiting. I checked this book out from the library and read 2/3rds the way through it when I was 19. The information presented made so much of an impact on me that I quit eating sugar for 9 months. In the recent months I have been feeling the need to reform my diet. I know I have been over doing my carb intake. I thought it would be a good time to re-read Sugar Nation, and I was hoping it would have the same effect on me now, that it did 9 years ago. Of course, back then I had the determination of youth, a very gullible disposition, and a quite obsessive personality.  

Maybe some of that is still true today.......

Anyway,

I have just finished reading Sugar Nation: The Hidden Truth Behind America's Deadliest Habit and the Simple Way to Beat It by Jeff O'Connell. This is a book about diabetes. The author was diagnosed with prediabetes. His doctor offered him very little advice. Because Jeff O'Connell wanted to take care of his body and live a full, vibrant life he did his own research. He interviewed doctors, read books, analyzed studies, sorted through clinical reports, and did his own experiment on himself. He was able to find the cure for his condition through lifestyle changes.

Jeff O'Connell uses his own story as the background on which he draws the complex picture of diabetes development, diagnosis and care in the American medical system. When he talks about what diabetes does to the body you are left with a vivid impression and a feeling of urgency to take action before you loose your own health. 

The parts of the book that discussed the mindset of the medical institution were very motivational to me this time reading the book. A doctor can not make you take care of yourself. Doctors are primarily trained to prescribe medicine not nutrition. Once you are taking a prescription you very seldom with get off of it. I have had this experience. Reading Sugar Nation opened my eyes, anew, to the fact that I must do something to cure my condition and ditch my prescription.

There are a lot of studies referenced in this book. Parts of it are a little weighty if you find that sort of thing boring. Some of the events in his life seem a little shoehorned into the book, but I think they were supposed to break up the monotony that can come with statistics. Overall, I enjoyed this book and found it interesting. It is not too long; 265 pages excluding acknowledgements and notes. It discusses the seriousness of taking care of you health and also convinces you that you can succeed.

Send A Hug: Sloth Craft For Children

 

This is a simple craft that doesn't take any special equipment or make a mess. It is a cute way to send loved ones a hug through the mail. "Snail" mail is now "Sloth" mail. Heehee!  

I got this idea from the most recent issue of Highlights High Five magazine. This is how we made ours.

To make a template fold a piece of paper in half and draw a shape for the sloth. You can also make a template for the heart of you like. The other pieces are easy to freehand, so don't bother with making templates for them.

Use your template to trace the sloth shape onto paper. Also, draw out a face, claws for each paw, and a heart.

Cut out the shapes and color them.

Glue the pieces together.

Make sure the children get involved. :)

Fold the legs so that the sloth can sit up right. Ta da! Like I said, this project is really easy! 

Mail your sloths off to those people that you would like to hug, but are too far away to do so. I am sure your sloth hugs will brighten someone's day! :)

Try Something New

Genesis 1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

Today, we tried something new, at least new to us. Can you guess what it was?

Red potatoes? ...........

Nope.

Some kind of beet?............

Nope!

They tasted a little bit like a red raspberry, and the texture reminded me of a kiwi.

They have a lot of very hard seeds that are about half the size of a grain of rice. Thankfully the seeds are edible. It would be very difficult to spit them out because they are attached to the flesh and, also, because there are so many, many, seeds.

Okay, here is the last clue: they grow in the desert.

Did you get it?

We tried Prickly Pear cactus fruits! 

I was shopping at Walmart and happened to see Cactus Pears in the produce area. The price wasn't high. I thought they would be fun to try. And they were! That was pretty adventurous of me, seeing as how the last time I felt adventurous was last week and it didn't turn out so good. Last week I thought it might be fun to try a Papaya. Well, it wasn't. The Papaya flesh looked so yummy, kind of like a cantaloupe, but it tasted like a mushy, squash. It was a real let down. 

I am glad the Prickly Pear story has a better ending! We all liked them pretty well!

And, like most fruits, they are pretty good for you, too. I read that they are anti-inflammatory and high in some key nutrients. 

Have you tried Prickly Pear Fruits? What did you think? Were they good or not so much?

Pyramid Solitaire: Math Teaching Tool

 Pyramid Solitaire is a game, but it is, also, a great way to teach children how to make combination that equal 10.

I remember my Mom teaching me this game when I was young. She told me that it was supposed to help me learn addition. I already knew my combinations-to-equal 10 by heart. I thought it was a fun game, and really liked the fact that it counted for school. Wink. 

Fast forward 20 years, now I have a 5 year old son that I want to teach math. I could not remember how to play Pyramid Solitaire. I looked up "playing card math games" online the other night and found some really good instructions at multiplication.com. They have really quick and easy how to play instructions there. I don't feel like I would do as fine a job explaining the rules as they have. You should go check it out! One thing that I think improves the game is using the "draw" pile like you would in regular Solitaire: turning over the top three cards until you find a card that works, so forth. Using the draw pile in this manner helps the game last a lot longer.

I highly recommend this game as a teaching tool. I am using it with my son, not only to teach him addition, but also recognizing the number symbols. I think playing cards are working really well because they have the heart, diamond, spades, or clubs icons that can be counted to come up with the correct number.

Another counting device I have been using with my son is an egg carton filled with rocks. We count them and then take away 1 rock and count what is left, then we take away 2 rocks and count what is left, etc., etc....

I was interested in buying an abacus to help teach the early maths. Maybe I will end up buying one, but I am finding that the free "manipulatives" are working fine, so far. 

Do any of you have suggestions when it comes to teaching young children counting and math?