Dinner last night was the final meal in our Eating the Alphabet Challenge.

We ate 25 out of 26 letters.
While I could have legitimately, it turns out, called watermelon xigua, I used it for W. And, the Ximenia caffra fruit from South Africa (also known as Large Sour Plum) eluded me. But, I will find it…eventually.

The week was marked with many culinary highs and lows. While it was an interesting and expensive experiment, adding so much extra fiber to my diet too quickly left me feeling rather bloated. Eating produce that was either out of season, picked too green or just not tasty enough didn’t do anything to educate out senses.

There were, however, some hits that will go into regular rotation. In particular, pancakes with quince jelly and powdered sugar. A truly superb combination of sweet and tart.

The second big hit was last night’s root vegetable casserole (recipe to come tomorrow).

We also had one perfect mango to share, an experience that left all of us wanting more mango!

The best part, though, was working with my four year-old on a little book we made with pictures of what we’d eaten together…even if he did reject the jackfruit.

If I were going to do it again, I would spread the new tastes (and their expense) out over a month. Buying everything at once, though, did mean that I planned our meals and cooking time a little more thoroughly than usual. And, we did eat fewer snacks and less junk food.

Plus, I lost a whole kilogram (2.2 pounds) in a week.

Post from: Babylune

From top left: carrots, Jerusalem artichokes, potatoes, yams, beet. Photo by Kate Baggott

We’ve had a little set back on the Eating the Alphabet Challenge.

I decided to substitute jackfruit for Jerusalem artichokes after a stressful mistranslation experience at the farmers’ market last Saturday (I now know that a Jerusalem artichokes are neither artichokes, nor from Jerusalem and are called Topinambur Knollen in German).

My son and I bought a can of green jackfruit together on Tuesday, but on Wednesday, he started telling me “I don’t want any jackfruit.”

Still, I tried taking it out of the cupboard to think about what to do with it and he’d put it back in another cupboard where I would have more difficulty finding it. This afternoon after work and kindergarten, we did find some Jerusalem artichokes and I will be making a root vegetable dish tomorrow using the ingredients from the still life above. My boy is so relieved he carefully drew pictures of both the Jerusalem artichokes and the yams in the little book we’ve been making about this adventure.

Has anyone been doing this with us?

Post from: Babylune