How to Peel a Papaya

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Do you love to eat tropical fruits, but have difficulties when it comes to preparing them?  We just love papayas and when we saw them next to the bananas when we were shopping recently at Trader Joe’s we knew we would be taking one home with us. YUMMZ!

Now many years ago, when Kris worked in one of those big resort hotel kitchens, she learned a quick and easy way to peel and cut up papayas. This way may seem a bit strange at first, but once you peel a couple of fruits this way, you will be a pro.

Note: This way will work for other large fruits  such as honeydew and cantaloupes and pineapples.

1. To start, we recommend that you wash the outside of the papaya with some fruit and vegetable wash (or even baby shampoo) with a cloth and rinse well. This step is optional, but it just ensures that you are not making all the fruit dirty (some of the fruits we pick up in the store are a bit dusty- but maybe that is a Tucson thing) as you cut off the outer skin.

2. Cut off both ends, and stand the fruit up on your cutting board. Now cut the outer skin off in long strips, starting from the top and moving to the bottom. Use a “sawing” motion and keep the fruit strips about 1 inch or so wide. (This takes some practice so cut up all the fruit you can so you can get really good.)

Papaya with both ends cut off, and long strips being removed

Papaya with both ends cut off, and long strips being removed

3. When all the skin is gone, cut the fruit in half and remove all the seeds. Rinse to get all those pesky little seeds out.

Papaya with skin removed and split to show seeds

Papaya with skin removed and split to show seeds

4. Now your Papaya is ready to cut up and enjoy!

What do you think? This really is such an easy way to clean and cut up fruit. We hope you give it a try soon.

Trader Joe’s Recipe Revamp- Shallot Vinaigrette

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Trader Joe’s Recipe Revamp- Shallot Vinaigrette

We had a chance to catch Rachel Ray’s 30 minute meals on Monday.

Here is the link back to the 30 Minute Meals show that we watched

It was like seeing an old friend again, as it has been a long time since we have had a chance to watch 30 Minute Meals. FUN!

So, as usual Rachel makes a fantastic looking meal. But what really caught our eye (and our taste buds) was her Bistro Style Shallot Vinaigrette.  This looked just fantastic, so we tried it tonight. Now we did not have the exact ingredients that Rachel Ray used on her show, but thanks to Trader Joe’s, the ingredients were all close, and the resulting dressing was just wonderful!!

Trader Joe’s Recipe Revamp: Shallot Vinaigrette

  • 2TBS grated shallots (we did not have shallots, so we used ½ a  garlic clove and some sweet onion for the rest)
  • 2 TBS Orange Marmalade
  • 3 TBS Dijon Mustard (we just bought Trader Joe’s Whole Grain Dijon Mustard, and used that, but only 1 TBS to make sure it was not too mustardy for us)
  • 2 TBS sherry vinegar (we used Trader Joe’s apple cider vinegar)
  • 1/3 Cup Olive Oil
  • Salt and Pepper

1. In a bowl, add the grated shallots (or onion-garlic mixture), the Orange Marmalade, the Dijon Mustard and the Vinegar. Whisk together until smooth and combined.

Ready to mix up

Ready to mix up

2. Add the olive oil in a thin stream, as you continue to whisk. Add salt and Pepper.

3. Taste and see if you would like more mustard, more marmalade or if you need more Salt and pepper.

The finished salad dressing

The finished salad dressing

We served this wonderful dressing on a spinach salad (spinach, onions, tomatoes and carrots) with some roasted fish on top. It was a hit! We will defiantly make this dressing again.

Here Again is the link back to the 30 Minute Meals show.

Trader Joe’s New Fearless Flyer

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Wow is it that time again??

Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer arrived earlier today in our email. In all the years, this is the first time that we have received an electric Fearless Flyer. I am glad that Trader Joe’s is going electric!

We usually find a number of interesting items in the Fearless Flyer, and this time, it came thought with flying colors!

Wine:

There were a number of great sounding wines that we will have to try –Including a $1.99 Pinot Grigio from Italy’s Umbria region. At this price, this wine is cheaper in Tucson than the “Two Buck Chuck” which sells here for $2.99. This is a great time to drink a Pinot Grigio, slightly chilled it would be fantastic with a main dish salad (say grilled chicken or fish on top of a nice bed of salad greens).

Grub:

We also found some main-dish items that looked interesting. One in particular, was Gourmet Chicken Meatballs with Sun-Dried Tomato, Basil & Provolone. Now, these little beauties sounded absolutely fantastic. They made our menu-mind go crazy with ideas: Add to pasta, serve with eggs for breakfast? But the best we thought was from the Fearless Flyer: “serve as an unexpected addition to chicken soup” WOW that would be both unexpected AND delicious, right?

Sweets:

OK our confession for the best part of the Fearless Flyer? Dessert of course!  On the bottom of page 14 was a small note about Whoopee Pies!  Now we realize that not everyone knows what this wonderful item is, but we both really love them. A Whoopee pie is not actually a pie at all, but two chocolate cookies (soft mind you) with a marshmallow cream filling. They sorta resemble an chocolate sandwich cookie, but the whole thing is extra rich and soft and yummy…

So before we tear out of the house and head to Trader Joes to stock up, we will close with a pledge to share all the lovely goodies from the Fearless Flyer that we purchase here, so you are able to read our comments and the review.

Have you received your Fearless Flyer yet?

Click here to go to the Trader Joe’s Website and read it for yourself.

How to make Eggs in a Bun

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Eggs in a bun

Eggs in a bun

Like we said in the previous post, we saw this cute item somewhere on the internet last fall (I think, but who knows, the way time flies it might have been longer, right?). But when I tried to go back and find the site, GONE!  We are sure we created a bookmark, but who knows. Anyway we planned to make these a number of times for different events, but so far that has not worked out yet. Oh well, their loss.

Trader Joe's Brioche Buns

Trader Joe's Brioche Buns

To make sure they were as easy as we thought, we decided to make them for dinner last night, you know for research. We found these lovely buns: Trader Joe’s Brioche Buns and thought they were the perfect buns for our eggs.

Here is what we did:

1. Cut the top of the bun, and cut away some of the bread in the middle, forming a sort of nest. Make sure to leave the walls thick, so that the raw egg does not ooze out the side.

Cut off the top of each bun

Cut off the top of each bun

2. Crack the eggs into the buns. Now our buns were large, and so we felt as if they could handle the two eggs. In the original post, long gone on the internet, they were smaller buns with only one egg in each.

Ready for the oven

Ready for the oven

3. We sprinkled the eggs with sliced green onions, and some cheese. We were also thinking that a cheese sauce or Hollandaise sauce would also be nice, as would salsa.

4. Bake. We baked these in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. We were trying to leave the yolks a bit runny, but then the whites would have been runny as well. In the end, they were cooked but not hard cooked.

5. Serve. We ate these with a nice side of fruit salad. YUM!

So the bottom line: these were as cute to make/eat as we thought, but they did take longer to bake than we expected. Also they were quite large and we think they would be better with smaller buns and only one egg.

So if you are looking for something unusual to make for a brunch, these might just be perfect.