Really we don’t. Our tree is giving us a respectable 3 to 6 fruit a day. Totally manageable.

This week, I learned that feijoas (pronounced fee-jo-ahs) thrive in our sub tropical climate and also don’t have any natural pests here.

Every day, I check the lawn under and gather up any fallen fruit. Although Tofu doesn’t seem to be interested in feijoa this autumn, he could just be trying to trick me into nonchalance. I’ve caught him hoeing into them in other years so I’m not so easily fooled.

I’m still squirreling away all the macadamia nuts that are dropping onto our lawn. I haven’t bought a macadamia nut cracker yet so I’m just collecting and collecting. The only way I can get them open right now is using a brick and smashing the nuts on concrete. But it’s not pretty and kind of caveman like to be honest. I hope my neighbours don’t see me smashing bricks and nuts in the backyard…and eating the results. The nuts have a great flavour, but aren’t crunchy. I’ve already got a few experiments in mind for a sweet but non-crunchy nut. But in the mean time, I’ve got feijoa to tend to.

I’ve hardly eaten feijoa “as is” this year. There just hasn’t been enough to experiment with them as an ingredient and eat them raw. I prefer to experiment.

Here are 2 new experiments that I made up on the fly this week.

Feijoa Danishes

I’ve never made danishes before, but I’m pretty comfortable wrapping frozen puff pastry around just about anything. So I cut little squares, topped them with custard, maple syrup and feijoa folded 2 opposite corners into the middle, slightly overlapping and baked them for 20 minutes in an 180°C oven. I used 2 and a half sheets of puff pastry and 8 feijoas which made 12 danishes.

An easy crowd pleaser and probably adaptable to almost any fruit. I ate these for breakfast and afternoon tea, but I suppose you could do breakfast or afternoon tea if you were that way inclined.

Feijoa and onion chutney sauce

Ok, maybe this is a relish. I don’t really know because I’ve never made a chutney or a relish before. All I know is that this tastes like a chutney.

Makes just over half a cup of sauce which is the perfect amount for 2 the two of us for dinner, so it’s not really a for saving for later type chutney.

I served this sauce on some bangers and mash for dinner. The sausages were Heller’s London Pride pork sausages and got along with this sauce like a house on fire.

This is a recipe you should taste along the way to adjust the seasonings. If you like sour, add more vinegar, you like sweet, add more sugar. I imagine every feijoa is a little different so if you have some real sweet ones, you might not need much sugar. If you got some real sour ones, you might do away with the vinegar. Use your best judgement, but be careful when tasting bubbling sauces, they can be really, really hot. Blow before licking the spoon.

Ingredients
3 feijoa
1/2 onion
2 teaspoons sugar
A splash of vinegar
Sprinkle of cinnamon
1 tablespoon oil
Salt

Preparation

1. Dice the onion and add onion and oil to a saucepan. Cook on a medium low heat for about 10 minutes.
2. Add sugar, cinnamon and a little salt. You are probably the best judge for salt, but remember that you will may be serving this sauce with something savoury so the sauce doesn’t need to be salty on its own.
3. Cut the feijoas in half and scoop out the flesh with a teaspoon. Add to saucepan.
4. Add a splash of vinegar.
5. Simmer for 20 minutes stirring every now and then.