Category: Blog: My day so far…

While preparing to write the original Horned Melon/Cucumis metuliferus article, I ate the green “jelly” part of the fruit and spat out the seeds. One Horned Melon gave me a single serving of fruit and some seeds. That’s all. No more. Unless you count what I tossed into the compost bin. There was so much wasted that I simply did not “see” as food.

My friend Plant Sister, who lives in southeast Asia, thought my article could have been more complete. She shared with me what she had learned from her mother. Plant Sister wrote the instructions for this article and provided photos and original drawings; I did the editing, adding three photos and a few comments, and I learned a lot in the process!

From a single Horned Melon fruit, Plant Sister can get:
One small bottle of the green Horned Melon juice (approximately 30% juice/70%water),
One small cup of green Horned Melon “jelly,”
One tablespoon of orange Horned Melon “meat,”
Plus all the seeds… “Seed for sharing with people who love to grow their own food,”
Horned Melon Peel, to be dried and later used to make a tea.

Plant Sister thought it would be good to explain how to utilize the many parts of the Horned Melon so that more people could learn how useful this fruit is.  She said, “Thank you for letting me have a chance to tell you about my experience with the method. I took the fruit in my hand and …did it step by step…learning by doing.”

The steps:
—Use scissors to cut each tip of the sharp horn of the Horned Melon as my drawing shows.

Please cut only the hard horn at the tip of each horn to avoid getting jabbed with the sharp points.
 
—Wash the Horned Melon in a salt solution (about 1/2 teaspoon salt dissolved in 3 cups of water). —–Do not rinse. Let air dry.
—Cut the fruit, scoop out the green jelly and seeds; each seed is inside a sac.
 

Now we will make the juice/water mixture and retain the green pulp:

—Place a colander into a bowl. Put the green seed sacs into the colander.
—Prepare 60 ml. water. Please use water that has been boiled and allowed to cool to room temperature.
—Pour the water onto the seed sacs. Using a teaspoon, “stir lightly but quickly to separate the seeds from the sacs.”Put the green seed sacs into the colander.

—Reserve the water and use this water to repeat the sieving process again and again until all the seeds have separated from the sacs.

—After the last sieving, save the water, which will be approximately a 30%/70% Horned Melon juice/water mixture. Remove everything from the colander.
Once the seeds and the green sacs/solids/jelly are separated, place each part in a cup: seeds in one cup, solids in another cup.
“In addition to the juice/water mixture we now we have one amount of the seeds and one amount of green sacs/solids/jelly each in a small cup.”
 Here is a bowl of the green “jelly” after the seeds have been removed.

When I was preparing my Horned Melon, that was my stopping point. Plant Sister takes this a bit further, obtaining more food from the single fruit. She has kindly included her own drawings to show the process.

—Use a tablespoon to scrape the orange-colored “meat” from inside the peel/rind as the photo shows.

The Horned Melon meat is mixed with the water and some coconut sugar and a bit of salt are added.

Plant Sister says: “It had a sweet smell of the coconut sugar.”

—Using scissors, cut the outer peel of the Horned Melon fruit into julienne strips. Allow the peel to dry.

Note: if you live in a damp climate you may want to use a dehydrator for this process. “This is the photo of the dried peel, which we can use for tea”.

“I am very happy I can teach the method to other people. This method will be useful to them, and the original article about the Horned Melon will be more complete. Thank you for letting me have a chance to tell everyone about my experience with the method. Please have a good day today. I hope you like ‘all’ the Horned Melon today!”
Plant Sister

Plant Sister’s mother, who is over 94 years of age, will be smiling today, knowing that more people have learned not to let food go to waste. Using Plant Sister’s method you can now use everything but the horns.

Photos, instructions and original drawings by Plant Sister.
Photos by therealmgreene: Horns, Pulp with seeds, Seed in Sac.
Edited by therealmgreene.

Originally published February 2015

Whatever you call this fruit, it certainly is unusual.
The plant is similar to a cucumber or melon vine, which you can either allow to creep along in the garden or provide support. The fruits start out small and green, covered with horns. The young fruit is similar in color to the leaves, so it can be hard to spot and may come as a surprise while you are weeding or re-tying the vines. Ouch, yep, that was a horned melon all right. Each vine can produce up to 100 fruits. Ouch, there’s another one! As the fruits grow and ripen, they change from green to whitish, then yellow, and finally orange.
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Horned melons require very warm temperatures to produce a crop, so it’s best for many gardeners to start the seeds indoors. The seeds are a bit fussy about temperature and will not germinate until about 58 F.
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Once your outdoor weather stabilizes to above 60 F, you can transplant the small plants into the garden. Keep them well watered until established and add mulch once the soil warms to 75 F. I grew mine in a very large container in full sun, quickly learning that a strong support was needed – a tomato cage was not gonna suffice. The vines were well behaved at first, staying within the confines of the provided support. Later they tried to reach over the fence where the beans were growing.

As for disease and pests, all I can say is that my plants were not bothered by any insects. The mice, which always eat my strawberries, did not bother the horned melons. Near the end of the growing season, however, the vines suffered from wilt, as may happen with some other cucumber/melon relatives.

The plants do not like any amount of cold weather, so plan ahead to harvest before frost, but the fruit is very cooperative. Cold weather was approaching and I had to dash outside to harvest all the fruits even though they were still quite green. Here’s the good part: If the fruit is kept at room temperature, not refrigerated, it will ripen and will keep for several months. Yes, you read that correctly. Being a skeptic, I just had to do a test with a few of my fruits. Yes, it’s true. Some that were picked green in November lasted until early January at room temperature, no refrigeration.

Here, have a look and ripened just fine. Lovely color.
 

As for the taste, hmmm. You can research and see what others think – that the fruit tastes like a cross between a cucumber/lemon/banana/zucchini. Some people hate it. Some are put off by the green color. Many don’t like fruit that looks like a medieval weapon. Or you can just dig in and taste for yourself. The type of seed you plant, the soil/temperature/growing conditions, and other variables all contribute something different to the taste of the fruit. To me, they tasted a bit like kiwi, but they were more fun to eat because I spit out each precious seed to save for next spring.

Each seed is surrounded by a lime green, jello-like sack (I don’t know the technical term). The entire fruit can be eaten: rind, pulp, seeds and all. They can be eaten at any stage of ripeness, from green to orange. The leaves can be cooked and eaten like spinach. (Nope, I did not try that!) The fruit pulp contains vitamins A and C and iron and fiber. As with any food crop, please know the source of your seeds as there are “cousins” of the edible horned melon that are quite bitter and inedible and possibly toxic.

I communicate daily with my Plant Sister who lives halfway around the world. It was she who first introduced me to the African Horned Melon. It was the trading of these seeds that started our friendship. She tells me that the rind of the Horned Melon is very high in Vitamin C. You can make Horned Melon Rind Tea rich in Vitamin C: Slice the rind, dry/dehydrate it, and store it in a glass jar in a dark cabinet. The seeds are available from Baker Creek and several other companies. If the seed package says ‘Kiwano,’ the fruit will likely be sweeter than an unnamed variety.

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I ate the Horned Melon with a spoon as a taste test, then later mixed the pulp with plain yogurt (excellent), in a smoothie (very good), on ice cream (no, not so much – I still prefer chocolate), and on cake (everything tastes good on cake!). A few ideas for later: Horned Melon Salsa or a lovely green sherbet. I am told that some people make a “Horned Melon Martini” and in the southern part of the U.S. they make a “Blowfish Melon Cocktail.” What’s next? “Jelly Melon Shooters”?

Almost forgot, yes, the pulp can be strained and made into jelly. I have GOT to try that one!
But for now I’m still working up the nerve to prepare Roasted Horned Melon as is done in their native country. Don’t think there is a recipe for that in mom’s Fanny Farmer Cookbook.

Edit: Update for the Horned Melon seeds planted Jan 30, 2014: 30 out of 36 seeds have germinated by Feb 5, 2014. These seeds were saved from the fruit grown in Savannah, picked in November while green, allowed to ripen indoors, and seeds cleaned by the fermentation method in water as for tomatoes.

Originally published March 2014

DOG FOOD RECIPE; Home canned dog food

3 Lb. fresh Meat – chicken, duck, rabbit, turkey, beef, lamb, venison, liver, gizzards, heart or any combination thereof; if using ground beef it should have a high-fat content
Sweet Potato – 3 large, chopped
Fresh Spinach – 1 lb, uncooked
Fresh Peas – 1 lb, uncooked (or cooked garbanzo beans)
Oatmeal – 1 cup, uncooked (optional par-boiled barley)
Brown Rice – 2 cups, cooked
Fresh Eggs 4 large, lightly beaten
Egg Shells – 4 large, rinse and bake @ 350 for 10 minutes, process in blender until they look like fine sand
Non-Fat Plain Greek Yogurt – 1 cup
Fish Oil – ½ cup (Salmon oil or flax seed oil)
Fresh Parsley – ½ cup, finely chopped
Glucosamine – ¼ cup, powdered
Tomatoes – 3 large, chopped or diced
Dried Kelp – 10 Tbsp, crumbled
Fresh Garlic – 7 cloves, finely chopped (some may opt to omit garlic)
Water – 6 to 8 cups

In a large pot, boil 6 cups Water, add sweet potatoes and peas. Cook until tender.

Add meat, oatmeal, rice, fish oil, tomato, and garlic. Cook 40 minutes or until rice is done.

Add remaining ingredients, cook another 30 minutes, add water as needed for very thick, stew-like consistency. Remove from heat, immediately spoon into pint jars, top with lid, tighten band (do not over-tighten), process in pressure canner at 15 pounds for 90 minutes. (Follow directions for your pressure canner.) Cool completely, remove bands, check seals after 24 hours, store in cool, dry area.

Adjust ingredients to suit your dog’s dietary requirements; check with your veterinarian.

Note: I just bought an Instant Pot. Here is a link to homemade dog food cooked in an Instant Pot. https://traditionalcookingschool.com/food-preparation/homemade-dog-food-in-the-instant-pot/