Medjool dates & fresh figs

[Catrin]

Oh man, oh man, oh man do I love dates. I just bought a pile at a roadside stand. I never seem to have a problem with them keeping. I use them as snacks on rides with walnuts or cashews. Sometimes smushed together into a sticky kind of bar, but most of the times separate. Dates are about 80 calories an ounce, so I have to watch how many I eat and those plump medjool dates really add up.

Yeah, and they are pretty high in carbs, but oh so good.

What had me wondering if they were prone to spoiling is the outside of them have little white specks, but that doesn't mean anything. I am sold on them though - so I have new fruit options to add to my apples, bananas and, best of all...BERRIES

Mimi, I wish you lived closer to me, I would LOVE to find out what figs fresh off the tree taste like! At Trader Joe's they were refrigerated...is that actually necessary or just their way of preventing them from becoming overly ripe?

Catrin the berry monster

[Biciclista]

yeah, if they aren't refrigerated, they more or less just melt.

[Trek420]

yeah, if they aren't refrigerated, they more or less just melt.

Fresh figs remind me of eating them off the tree as a child. My mom still has a fig tree in her garden. I don't think Knott had one right off the tree till she had one of those. Delicious.

Whether the green or black figs when I can get them fresh or from a farm market they don't last.

[Reesha]

A delicious, healthy, fiber rich dessert I kind of Frankensteined out of some raw recipes:

In a food processor, process a few fresh medjool dates, a tablespoon or two of ground flax seed, a pinch of salt, and a half a cup of rolled oats. add a tablespoon of maple syrup or agave nectar. Should be crumbly at this point.

Sprinkle the crumble on top of juicy, ripe peaches, sliced up

Perfect!

[azfiddle]

I absolutely LOVE medjool dates - sometimes they are called the "queen of dates". Also if you can find them, barhi (honey) dates, which are smaller and rounder, and black dates are great. If you have a middle-eastern food store you can get them in bulk and they may be a little cheaper.


Dried figs- just don't eat the stem. I like mission and calimyrna dried figs, but it's easy to eat too many of them.

[Catrin]

A delicious, healthy, fiber rich dessert I kind of Frankensteined out of some raw recipes:

In a food processor, process a few fresh medjool dates, a tablespoon or two of ground flax seed, a pinch of salt, and a half a cup of rolled oats. add a tablespoon of maple syrup or agave nectar. Should be crumbly at this point.

Sprinkle the crumble on top of juicy, ripe peaches, sliced up

Perfect!

Sounds fantastic and I can see mixing this concoction with berries! I've a confession, I really don't care for peaches, nectarines or citrus.
I WILL eat a peach before an orange though, and I do like peach ice-cream. Then again, I've yet to find an ice cream I don't like

I absolutely LOVE medjool dates - sometimes they are called the "queen of dates". Also if you can find them, barhi (honey) dates, which are smaller and rounder, and black dates are great. If you have a middle-eastern food store you can get them in bulk and they may be a little cheaper.

Dried figs- just don't eat the stem. I like mission and calimyrna dried figs, but it's easy to eat too many of them.

I love dried figs, just hadn't had fresh figs before yesterday and wasn't certain if I was supposed to eat the skin or not. I did

So I've tried two new fruits, well, one really and another in a form I've not had before. I would like to try other non-citrus fruits as well - but I draw the line at prunes <shiver>

[margo49]

Come on over, we're just about to harvest! We have 10 000 palms just on our kibbutz let alone the rest of the country...enough for all of you! We can even ride out to one of the young groves 1000 pa lms hat I helped water them when they were just planted. You can still reach the fruit from the ground out there and it is an easy ride of <5 km !!

The barhi is great! If you buy them yellow and hard put in freezer 48 hours then take it out and let it thaw. Goes a kind if caramel colour and is soft and yummy.
Medjool is the best though - all soft and juicy. They will be ready in month or 6 weeks...
but now I know you-all are interested I will keep an eye on them

There are lots of kinds of dates and they do grow some of them in parts of the US as well.