Guavas

Guava trees generally do well in South Africa, or atleast in the Western Cape, anyway... It is not uncommon to have a neighbour who has a tree, if you don't have one yourself. My brother and sister-in-law have one at their new home and it has already rewarded them with bags full of fruit. Sunett, my sister-in-law gave me a bag and told me how to bottle them with syrup. So easy!...and what a treat for dessert with a bit of plain yoghurt or cream!

First, sterilise your glass jars by boiling them for a while in water on the stove. I also dip the lids in the boiling water towards the end to make sure they are clean. You then peel the ripe fruit and take out any bad fruits from the batch. [Don't be shocked if you find a little worm from time to time]... Cut your peeled fruit in half, put them in a pot, just covering the bottom and fill with water, just covering the fruit. Now add sugar, more or less the same as how much water you used (i.e. 2 cups of water = 2 cups of sugar). I tried it with brown sugar and it also worked well. Now boil and stir from time to time. It shouldn't take very long, just a few minutes before they are done. Once done, bottle them and add the syrup. Don't fill the fruit right to the top of the jar because you need a bit of room for the syrup. [Sunett says she saves the left-over syrup to use in a next batch.] Next, Sunett is going to teach me how she makes guava jam! Will let you know how that goes! :)