In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

It’s finally time to talk about strawberry guavas. We’re 38 pounds into the season gathered over the last month. My guava-gatherer husband says about 25% of the crop remains. I’ve identified six people who love strawberry guavas so we’ve given more away this year.

I freeze the cooked puree and later make jam or thaw smaller amounts for a yogurt mix-in, topper for fruits or the base of smoothies. This year I also made guava paste, strawberry guava sorbet and sherbet. A friend who grew up a few blocks away in the 1950’s had a strawberry guava tree. Her mother made tapioca with the puree. I substituted the puree for half the milk in the box recipe. It was quite good. I just thought of another use. Freeze the puree in little square ice cube trays and add the frozen cubes to sparkling water.

We pick the proverbial low-hanging fruit and then shake the tree. The fruit from the 12-foot tree falls to these black garden trays and then is sorted. Remarkably, the guavas store well in the refrigerator so i usually wait until i have 7-10 pounds to process all at once.

When the guavas have cooked down with a little water for about fifteen minutes, I use the immersion blender to reduce the larger chunks of fruit. Then the mixture is ready for my grandmother’s chinois which makes quick work of the transformation to guava puree.

I’m estimating that I have about two gallons of puree in the freezer in pint and quart containers. Making jam will be another day’s project. During the winter months I share the puree with a friend who loves it as much as I do. There’s also a neighborhood following for the strawberry guava jam.

After making the guava puree, I harvested and stewed some rhubarb and added puree which transformed it to a lovely raspberry color.

The summer garden comes to a close. Time to return these recipe folders to the drawer.

I enjoyed the last ‘Black Krim’ tomato caprese style for lunch.

With some of the last of the tomatoes, peppers and baby zucchini, I made a flatbread pizza.

And now the bouquets slide into autumn colors.

You may enjoy seeing what other garden bloggers harvested last week at Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

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