FruitMonster.com

Hey America, Spring is Here!

Broccoli and Cauliflower for the Pallet Plot!

Well the temperatures have certainly been heating up back in the U.S. this past month and there is little doubt that spring is in the air! Sure, you might get another wallop of cold front or two before Old Man Winter is finished (with frosts still possible in much the U.S.), but regardless of the specifics, one thing is for certain:

It’s time for YOU to start a garden!

Now I don’t want to hear any excuses.  None of that ‘I don’t have a green thumb’ or ‘I don’t have time’ or ‘I don’t have a space to grow anything’… it’s all NONSENSE!  Yes, I’m calling you out!  You have no excuse, this is the time for you to kick into gear and nurture your inner farmer.

Let’s Garden Ourselves Out of this Mess!

See, if you’re like me, you’re a bit frustrated with all the corporate corruption and political game playing going on in the world today.  From Monsanto getting away with destroying our organic and heirloom seed populations, to the government claiming the right to confiscate all our farmland, we have a lot to be peeved about!  But no matter how you look at it, part of the solution to fixing our broken system and becoming less dependent on this crazed planet killing consumerism machine is to grow our own food.  (Not to mention it will make you healthier…shhhh it’s all a part of my fruitopian fruitmonster plan)

So put aside all your preconceived ideas about how ‘hard’ gardening is… because it’s simply not that difficult!  And there are plenty of resources out there for you to make it easy!  Starting with…

The Pallet Plot!

Put it Anywhere!

Don’t have a place that you can dig up to start a ‘classic’ garden?  Maybe you are surrounded by asphalt or only have a balcony on your apartment?  Perhaps you are not in the best shape or have a bad back and can’t till the dirt as well as you’d like?  Maybe you’re like me and may have to move house soon!

Well look no further than creating your own “Pallet Plot“!  It’s easy!  It’s practically free and it is even portable!

What You’ll Need:

- a wooden pallet (check behind a grocery store near the dumpster!)

- a material to enclose the backside (I used wood)

- staples/nails/screws (depending on your backing)

- compost/dirt (about 75 Liters)

- seeds (greens, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, herbs)

What Now Fruit Face?

So you basically are one problem solving adventure away from having your own pallet plot:  how do you enclose the back/sides of the pallet?

I used wood from another pallet and screwed the wood planks in place because I wanted mine to be sturdy and portable.  You could also use old canvas, burlap, weed barrier, or maybe even a tarp!  It’s up to you to figure that part out!  Be creative!

Once you’ve covered the backside, you are free to pack in the dirt.  Make sure you stuff it in there firmly enough so that your plants will be able to stand upright, but don’t make the stuff into bricks!  After that, you can start planting!  If you’d like, start your seeds indoors using a seedling starter house like this one!

One last thing, if your pallet gets a lot of sun, be sure to water it often!  Since the pallet is above ground, it won’t retain moisture quite as well!

A Fresh Pallet Plot! Green-age Coming Soon

Dude, That was Easy!

That’s what I’ve been telling you!  And to think, you’ve thought all this time that growing food was hard!  It’s not!  All you have left to do is to remember to water your little green friends and be patient!  Before you know it, you’ll have all sorts of goodies to munch on… and boy will you ever feel fantastic.  Because gardening makes you happy!  But watch out!  It’s a bit addicting…

That’s all for now!  Happy pallet picking!

Fruity Leafy Goodness

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve quite the penchant for green smoothies.  In fact, on this website you can find plenty of delicious recipes to make your own.  You basically just need some fruits, leafy greens and dates and/or juice!  I put a lot of dates in my smoothies to bump the calorie count (they are very calorie dense fruits), but if you want, you can just use a juice as the base (instead of water) and skip the dates!  This gives you a lower calorie smoothie.  Just like the apricot banana one I make in this video!

Green smoothies are the easiest, tastiest way to drastically improve your health!  Use spinach, kale, lettuces, bok choy or collards and you won’t even taste them!  All you get is creamy fruity deliciousness, while directly ingesting an easily absorbable bundle of essential nutrients!  What are you waiting for, go make one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16I59dkOc4w&

Harvest Time!

It’s mid-February (the equivalent of August in the northern hemisphere) and that means it’s harvest time!  Oh yeah! Lots of delicious goodies are coming out of the FruitMonster Garden! And in my epic journey towards supplying an ever greater portion of my diet from my own backyard (well actually, front yard, and side yard too… it’s outta control), I have inevitably come upon the issue of what to do during winter.

Planning for Winter

Now, there are certain things that you can grow over the winter.  What exactly those are varies by climate zone of course (“what winter?” say the Queensland blokes).  Here in Canberra, we do dip below freezing several times a year, which really limits what you can grow.  This winter, I plan to grow broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, peas, beans, kale and hopefully some carrots too.

Freezing Food Storage!

But that’s hardly a tasty diet for the winter period.  And I’d get awfully meager portions if I relied on that alone.  So that’s where food storage comes in handy!  Now there are several options for this.  You can use ‘canning‘, which is really using glass jars or   dehydrating, which is fairly self explanatory.  Or you can use freezing.

Purchasing canning supplies is actually pretty expensive!  And dehydrating is limited in what it can accomplish (not many foods dehydrate and rehydrate well).  So I elected to start with freezing.  I was able to snag up a ~200L freezer for $160, which will only cost me ~$50/yr to run.  And someday when I have my dream abode, complete with solar panels, it won’t cost me anything

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIiLTDN27pw&

Chopping and Blanching

Blanching

The first step in freezing all the food you pull out of your garden, is to set up a blanching assembly line (see the video above).  You’ll need:

- a big pot of boiling water (or a steamer)

- a blanching basket or good food removal tool (to get stuff out of the hot water)

- bowls full of ice water for cooling the foods

- a colander for draining the ice water bowls

- storage containers/plastic freezer bags

This is the bare bones minimum list of supplies!

What’s Blanching?

The FruitMonster loves raw foods and this website promotes them because they are full of amazing enzymes.  These enzymes help us digest our food and contribute to our general wellness in fantastic ways! But those same enzymes will actually break down the food we want to store into a mushy nasty goop in the freezer!  So we have to blanch our food to kill some of these enzymes.  Once we do that, they can be stored for 6-12 months in the freezer!

Sidenote:  I know what a lot of raw-foodies may be thinking, I’ve sold-out to the evil world of cooked foods! Aaaaagh!  Nonsense!  I emphatically believe that raw food is great.  But as I’ve pointed out, we’ve got bigger things to worry about than just our own bodies.  We need think bigger!  Think about our greater community!

Ice Buckets for Cooling Hot Veggies!

How Do I Blanch?

I’m not going to go through the bother of explaining at length how to do it all, because this great website has all the information you need!  The National Center for Home Food Preservation was created to keep you safe when preserving food.  It is the standard point of reference for the blanching proces!

Each food has a different period of time that it should be blanched, so read carefully.

Tips

Set up an assembly line like in the video above.  Mine was a bit chaotic, but I never do things perfectly (cause then you never get it done ).  Have a chopping station next to the boiling water.  Next to the boiling water, place the ice water bowls.  Make sure you have extra ice available for when the first batch melts!  Then have a storage containers ready to go.

Keep in mind the approximate portion sizes you’ll want when you go to thaw your produce!  Smaller containers are often better than big ones since foods get frozen together!

There’s Your Crash Course in Blanching!  Try it Yourself! It’s Easy!

Peace, Love and Frozen Fruits

Yeah, I grew this juice in my garden.  100% FruitMonster blood, sweat and tears  The flavor combo is pretty spectacular.  Give it a try!

Watermelon Cucumber Juice Recipe:

1/2 small watermelon

1 medium cucumber

 Auger that Melon Like a Felon!

yields ~ .5 L juice (triple that for a monster appetite)

What-er-way to cuke-that-cumber

I Grew a Watermelon, Time to Monster It

The best part of about growing your own organic watermelon, is that you know there aren’t any nasty chemicals on the rind!  That means you can juice the whole thing baby!  And since the rind is the most enzyme and nutrient rich part, you’d be wise to give it a try!

Watermelon Apple Juice Recipe:

1/2 small watermelon

1 apple

 Juice that melon!

yields ~ .5 L juice (triple that for a monster appetite)

King of the Watermelon Hill

Yeah, that’s right, three fruits in the name.  And I made it with fresh squeezed OJ.  This is the second plum smoothie, the third tomato smoothie and the fourth peach smoothie.  It is also extremely delicious, as it is a surprisingly good flavor combination.  So GO MAKE ONE  and unleash the monster in you

Tomato Plum Peach Green Smoothie Recipe:

2 c orange juice (for the food combo conscious – use water, just add a few more dates)

1 medium tomato

1 medium plum

2 medium peaches (2 large or 3 small)

4 c of greens (kale, spinach, chard, lettuce)

5-10 dates (5 large or 10 small)

Add a peach, then a plum, some tomato, blend and done!

Serves one monster (yields ~1 L)

Check out this page for videos on how to make a smoothie!

A Spherical Trio, Your Tongue's Hero

Look, Sometimes I Cook My Food

A lot of visitors to my site wonder why I even take the time to explain why I cook food, doesn’t everyone cook their food?  What’s so wrong with that?  Well, here at fruitmonster.com, I have essentially two audiences – those who are fruit-curious and those who are already into the fruitarian lifestyle.

For those who are already in the fruitarian lifestyle, there is a very strong emphasis on raw food.  This is because raw foods, or ones that are not cooked (or cooked below ~104 deg F) have all of their enzymes and other micronutrients intact.  They also do not have the toxic byproducts that sometimes show up when we cook things.  So, the theory goes, that by eating raw foods we can achieve the most optimal states of health.  And that is largely true!  Raw foods are fantastic, and I promote the raw food lifestyle on this site!  Especially with smoothies, juices and fruitmonstering sessions!  But I have to explain myself, because a large part of the raw food community will reject my thoughts as ‘heretical’.  I can even be kicked out of some raw food circles for sharing ‘non raw’ food ideas/content.  But I hope that those people will listen to what I have to say.

We Need to Go Local!

Cooked FruitMonster Garden Zucchini with Herbs

But I am also coming to understand in a very profound way, that the key to solving the world’s problems flows through what we put in our mouths!  And to escape the Corporate Crap Sandwich that we are caught up in, we need to shift our diets to locally sourced, organically grown foods!  This type of fruitmonstering diet will naturally follow the seasons and will be based on the foods accessible to us from our local environment.  So, although I love me some bananas, I really can’t sustainably base my diet off of them without shipping them in from a far away place, can I?  I also, living in southeast Australia, cannot grow them (or mangoes!) in my backyard or barter with my neighbors for them.  We need to keep this in mind!

Growing Your Own Food and Cooking It

Monstering Corn I Grew!

BUT, I sure can grow a lot of other amazingly awesome fruits and veggies!  But many of these food items just simply aren’t edible in their raw state (potatoes, other tubers)!  Others may be edible, but they are difficult to digest due to the large amount of cellulose in them. That means one cannot get enough calories from monstering them raw (e.g. brocolli, zucchini).

‘Healthy’ is Bigger Than Just Your Body

But, by cooking my garden grown goods, I am able to feed myself out of my backyard.  And while, yes, this is not as optimal for my body, it is more optimal for our communities and our planet.  ’Health’ has to do more with general well being of the rest of life around you than you might at first realize!  I think that is much more important, and I’m not afraid to shift to a less optimal diet for that cause.  And to be honest, I’m still eating an extremely healthy diet, balancing my non-local purchases (bananas and mangoes) with local ones (peaches, pears, apples, apricots) and cooking things lightly or steaming them for a short period of time (you don’t have to torch them!).

And who knows, maybe someday I will move to a tropical area and be able to monster mangoes at will!

In Summary:

Eat as much raw food as you can, sourcing it from mostly local sources.  Strive to eat seasonally, and don’t be afraid to cook your foods, especially if it allows you to feed yourself out of your garden.  Because growing your own food is power and this ailing planet needs that now more than ever!

You don't know jack!

Little Jack Horner

Sat in the corner,

Eating a Christmas pie;

He put in his thumb,

And pulled out a plum,

And said ‘What a good boy am I

Then little Jack Horner

Go up from his corner

And a blender did catch his eye

So he grabbed up some greens

Revved the machine

And said “DANG MAN THIS SMOOTHIE IS OFF DA HIZZY!”

Plum Pear Green Smoothie Recipe:

2 c water

2 medium pears (soft and ripe!)

3-4 plums (3 large or 4 small)

4 c of greens (kale, spinach, chard, lettuce)

10-15 dates (10 large or 15 small)

Repeat the above dumb plum poem while blending

Serves one monster (yields ~1 L)

Check out this page for videos on how to make a smoothie!

Succumb to Plum!

Yep! Tomatoes in a smoothie! Hey, it wouldn’t be the first time.  Even it if sounds strange, tomatoes are actually a fantastic smoothie ingredient, as the dates and other sweet fruits, are very complimentary!  Plus, nectarines (or peaches!) and tomatoes are in season here in Australia, so this is a perfect time to try one of these babies out!  I used fresh tomatoes out of my garden!

Nectarine Tomato Green Smoothie Recipe:

2 c orange juice (or water, just add a few more dates)

2 small or 1 large tomato

2-3 necatrines (2 large or 3 small)

4 c of greens (kale, spinach, chard, lettuce)

5-10 dates (5 large or 10 small)

Submarine that nectarine into green smithereens

Serves one monster (yields ~1 L)

Check out this page for videos on how to make a smoothie!

Tomato and Nectarine, Tastiest Combo Ever Seen

The FruitMonster on Milk:

You Don’t Need Milk to be Healthy!

It’s time for a FruitMonster FaceMail!  A micro-post accompanied by an informative video. Today, let’s ‘get real‘ about milk.  Recently, the Harvard Medical school released their own version of the USDA’s “MyPlate”.  And guess what?  It omits dairy completely.   In fact, Harvard is outrightly stating that milk is not part of a healthy diet.  They even discuss how we need to move to a plant based diet for health and environmental reasons!  That’s the FruitMonster message! Here’s the ‘plates’:

USDA Version

The Harvard Med School Version