Dragon Fruit Banana Sherbet…and a Giveaway

For more than three years, I have been on the hunt for Dragon Fruit.

Not a joke – I saw it on Tastespotting back in 2008, and thought it was the most beautiful fruit I had ever laid eyes on. The described flavor of strawberry and kiwi? Only made matters worse…

I HAD to have a dragon fruit.

Alas, here in the mountains of Virginia, you’re not going to walk in to Food Lion and pick up a half dozen. And apparently, not at the beach, nor in Raleigh, nor Charlotte, nor any other large town I happen to be passing through.

Suckage.

However, last month the fruit gods heard my plea, and a shipment of tropical fruit showed up on my front door from an online supplier – FromTheFarm.com.

Sweet goodness and mercy.

It took me a good hour to unpack that box – each item was individually wrapped. Starfruit, mangoes, Thai bananas. A Jackfruit (holy ugly, Batman), passionfruit, longan…a variety of others…and 2 beautiful Dragon fruit.

Yesssss.

I had no idea there were different varieties, but there are. A white, which I had seen photos of, and a red that I did not know existed. Gracious – it was some kind of gorgeous.

The seeds are what is reminiscent of kiwi – that tiny pop of crunch. And yes, I get the strawberry reference…but it’s still different than that. A nice smooth texture, but subtle, sweet flavor. I felt it needed a punch, but I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it – Sherbet.

I combined the dragon fruit with a burst of lemon – just what it needed – and then pureed in some baby bananas. I love when I can find baby bananas at the store, as they are SO flavorful and sweet, just as Thai bananas are. I would have used all Thai Bananas from the shipment, but they weren’t quite ripe when I went to make the sherbet, so I was forced to eat them a few days later.

It was torture, having to eat them all. But I took one for the team.

True story about Thai Bananas. A few years ago, Jon and I went to Thailand for a few weeks. Bangkok, Koh Phi Phi, Phuket…we got around a bit. At one point, we took a day trip to the Monkey Temple outside of Phuket.

Monkey Temple is insane. It’s a temple. And a flipping ton of monkeys, all monkey humpers, live there. They steal your sunglasses, they hump, they grab your butt, they eat the bananas you bring them. They continue to hump.

I had a pretty decent bunch of bananas, and Jon had wondered away from me a little. I had no wall of defense – here I was, a girl with an armload of ripe bananas in a cave full of crazy ass monkeys. All was well for a while, and I kept watching this bigger, uglier monkey steal bananas from the smaller monkeys. He was unattractive. And he humped everything. Literally. Nothing was sacred…so, I wasn’t too keen on this particular fellow.

He was terribly keen on me, however.

Despite my efforts to feed the cute baby monkeys, when Ugly Humper jumped on to my skirt and started yelling at me in Thai Monkey, I knew it was either the bananas or my virginity.

He got the bananas.

Hopefully you’re local grocer will have at least the bananas, and you can avoid molestation in order to make this sherbet. It would be worth it though, either way.

Dragon Fruit Banana Sherbet

Rating: 5

Ingredients

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 red dragon fruit, peeled and chopped
3 baby or Thai bananas
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup heavy cream

Instructions

Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring occasionally until all sugar is incorporated, making a simple syrup. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely.
In a blender or food processor, puree remaining ingredients until smooth, then pour in the simple syrup. Continue to puree for 20-30 seconds until very smooth.
Pour into ice cream maker and follow manufacturer’s instructions for freezing.
Serve and enjoy!

The Giveaway

If you are like me, and have no access to tropical fruits like these, fear not. You, too can get it online at FromtheFarm. So fresh, and delivered FAST and gorgeous. I can’t recommend it enough! They are even launching a brand new Tropical Fruit of the Month Club – how cool is that?

Luckily, FromTheFarm is wanting to give one of you their tropical fruit assortment. Who knows what will be in it? Hopefully dragon fruit (you could use the red or the white for this sherbet), the Thai Bananas? Starfruit? You never know, but you can rest assured it will be the best of what they have to offer at the time!

Just let me know you want to win…that will gain you one entry. But you REALLY want to win this. So, do one or more of the following, then come back here and leave me a separate comment for each one you did. You won’t be sorry!

• Follow FromTheFarm on Twitter
• Become a Fan of FromTheFarm on Facebook
• Pin a photo from this post
• Stumble this post

There you have it, 5 chances to win! Contest is open until 11:59pm EST on August 25. Open to US residents only, ages 18 and older. Winner will be notified via email. Prize shipped by and courtesy of FromTheFarm.

Good luck!!