New Veggie day!

**EDIT:, I have to post these 2 comments from my Aunt Barbara who used to be a missionary in the jungles of Brazil, and my cousin Becky who is currently a missionary in Haiti! THANKS FOR EDUCATING ME ON CHAYOTE SQUASH!!!!

From Becky:

This is a Haitian staple! We eat it a few times every week. In Creole, it's called Militon and it grows on a vine. It doesn't have much taste and takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it with. We often eat it boiled with carrots and then topped with some butter. I've had it prepared like a twice-baked potato with cheese-- pretty yummy. It's delicious roasted in the oven with other root veggies (I've had it roasted with carrots and onions). I've also had it made into a type of veggie casserole--- like with a cream soup and carrots with cheese. It obviously goes very well with carrots :) I understand you can make a mock apple pie with it-- I even have a recipe! Apples are hard to get here, and when you bake it as if it was an apple with all the spices and butter, it's supposed to taste just like apple pie! Leave it to missionaries to come up with mock-apple pie!

From Aunt Barbara:

This is one of the few veggies that we had in the interior in the Amazon. The Portuguese name is xuxu (shoo-shoo). It has almost no taste...takes up the taste of whatever it is cooked with. We ate it peeled and sliced with salt. The Brazilians have a slang expression that a person is like xuxu...meaning that they don't really stand for anything on their own.

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Once again, in the effort to promote better health in our family, we have been trying one new fruit/veggie per week! I am so excited to try new things and so is my daughter! She is pretty fearful of new foods, but for some reason, she has taken to this experiment! Try it out!

This past week we tried out the chayote squash! Ever heard of it? I had not!

Ellie and I always make a hypothesis as to what the fruit/veggie will taste like. I thought it would taste like cabbage and Ellie thought it would be sweet!

I did not know how to prepare it, so I found a nice recipe on allrecipes.com.....and even prepared it for some company we had over! It could be eaten raw on some salads, but people said the taste was a bit bland that way, so I opted for this method.

It was basically toasted in a pan with a little bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, vinegar and a pinch of sugar!

Ellie was sure excited.......but after 1 bite realized it was NOT her favorite food :) It was cute, but I did not make her finish it!

I liked it. The ACTUAL taste was like a bland squash. It was "fine" but not fabulous. But, I ate it, our company ate it, Ellie ate one bite and even Greg ate it!

Conclusion: We likely will not buy another one. But, now we have tried something new.....and that was totally fun!