Smooth and Sweet Guava Jelly Spread – You can make it at home!

in #food7 years ago

Sometimes I have a hankering for something spreadable, something that can spruce up that plain slice of bread or cracker, something that reminds me of the wonderful tastes of the natural world.

It also happened to start raining guavas over the last several days.

Don't let them go to waste!

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The fruit of the Psidium guajava tree, called guavas, are delicious.

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During the peak season, guavas fall to the ground all over the farm, and our horse and sheep eat a lot more of them than we do.

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So now that we are in full guava harvest, we decided to make something spreadable for snacking!

The most traditional guava candy is bocadillo, which is further reduced and thicker than the spread we made, but can be made the same way, just with a longer cook time.

How to make your very own Guava Jelly Spread!

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After collecting the fruits, wash and core them. Here you can see a number of cored guavas ready for cooking. The center of the guava has good pulp, but also contains all the seeds and some worms. We scoop out the core and feed them to the horse, and this way we save time later and don't need to do any straining.

With a bit of water and some panela or sugar, we boil the clean fruit in a covered container for about an hour.

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After it has been boiled, its time to blend. If you haven't taken out the seeds already, at this point you would strain the blended mix before putting it back on the stove.

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After blending its back to the stove to reduce the mixture further. Continue cooking and stirring on medium steady heat. When we stir, we are looking to measure the viscosity of our mixture by seeing how long the bottom of the pot can remain uncovered. As the mixture becomes more viscous, it takes longer and longer to cover up the revealed bottom of the cook pot.

As you stir, beware of the incredible danger should a boiling bubble splash some hot viscous guava on your skin!

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And there you have it! We saved this less viscous version in a mason jar, and used it to spread on crackers and pancakes all week! A little thicker and you can make candied guava.

Around here, guavas are called 'Traveler's snacks' and traditionally public 'routes' between rural areas will favor guava trees on both sides of the road, both for shade and for a delicious snack while travelling.

The Bits

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When I eat a raw guava directly from the tree, which I do from time to time, I usually choose one that is not fully ripe, that still has a bit of green on it yet. The more ripe the fruits, the more likely they are filled with worms! These worms are not harmful to humans, and probably add a good bit of protein, but I still prefer my fruits worm-free.

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So with the uneaten fruit, or the cores if they were prepared, we deliver a delicious snack to our horses.

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Our horse Umi never seems to mind a worm or two and, if she gets enough guavas, can sometimes appear to have red lipstick plastered around her mouth.

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All sorts of creatures enjoy guavas, including some rarer species, like this wild pidgeotto, who will search through the fallen guavas looking for insects to eat.

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I hope you enjoyed reading about and seeing our guavas! Connect with me in the comments, and come see what's going on on the EcoTrain!

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Guava is so nice fruit and it has many benefits. Thanks a lot for sharing your information with us.

I am sure it is delicious

Ha. I liked the bit of humor -- about your horse lookin' like she has Lipstick on . You're fortunate to live on a farm ! (Less noise & hub-bub).

My sister-in-law lives out on a farm too .. I tell her she's lucky. She has a HUGE garden, so she makes a lot of stuff from scratch too! Her fruit pies are out of this world.

Anyway, how much #sugar do ya use? ( You say, "With a bit of water and some panela or sugar, we boil the clean fruit in a covered container for about an hour.")

P.S. -
I am eating more #fruit these days, myself. ☻ Take care

Its hard to measure the solid panela blocks, we chop them up with a machete and use the pieces. I asked my wife how much sugar we used, and she said 'just a little'.

I'll add a visual. The piece we used fit between my thumb and index, without them quite touching.

I hope that helps! We never measure hardly anything and take it all by eye ;p

Mmm - thank you. This sounds delicious. I've not had many good guavas yet this year but when I do.... Thanks for sharing the lovely horse, too.

Welcome to the ecotrain Alex.

We have loads of Guava's here, very interesting you remove exactly the part i would have used to make something like that, will definitely try it your way, looks yummy, congratz with the curie upvote :-)

That's great! Same what I'm doing when im in my country... no waste! Guava jelly and strawberry jelly I did before...
thanks,

@kennyroy

Wish I could grow guava! I can't even find them in the store here in Colorado.

On occasion I think I have seen them here in Boulder. But definitely not in those amounts!

HA! I'm in Boulder! Must not be shopping at the right store ... I just checked out the new Lucky's for the first time today... but didn't exactly look for guava.

@ecoinstant I can smell the sweet- soury scent while drooling a bit looking at those ripened guavas-- I recall how my grandma cook those with coconut milk and sugar for our dessert years back :)

I've had guava paste, but it is too sweet for me. This looks like it would be delicious and lighter. Upvoting and following

Agreed! Here the paste is called Bocadillo and it is almost sickeningly sweet.

Your guavas look like mine from the outside, but mine are cream colored inside as well.
I have to do a post on how we make the jelly - my kids like that better than the jam.

I would read that article!

This post received a 1.5% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @ecoinstant! For more information, click here!

Impresionant Photography in this post. Upvote and Followed!!

This is new to me, thanks for sharing. :)

I have followed you on Steemit, please be kind enough to follow me as well.

Great Tip! I'll start follow you.

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would you like to join at the food blog contest? Get ready for the big event. To know more about the contest follow me and it will appear to your feed on friday. 40SBD is waiting for the first prize.
thanks,

@kennyroy

Thanks for letting me know! I am interested :)