Fruit Salad, the Healthy Summer Dessert!

Ingredients

• 1 papaya, ripe but firm
• 1 melon, ripe, luscious flavour
• 3-4 bananas, firm
• 6-8 canned peach halves, roughly cut up (from a tin, yellow cling peaches, drained, keep syrup)
• canned lychees
• 7 ounces glace cherries (or use fresh, pitted cherries)
• 6 apricots, fresh, ripe, in quarters (canned can be used)
• 5 kiwi fruits, peeled and quartered
• 1/2-1 cup granadilla, pulp
• 2-3 teaspoons vanilla
• sugar

Directions

1. 1

   The main idea is to use at least 6 kinds of fruit. The quantity you use does not matter. The usual base fruit is papaya. Don't add anything except fruits! Halve the recipe if you like, and remember that leftovers are great for breakfast! Or process into smoothies!

2. 2

   A can of litchies, drained and halved, was one of the ingredients, but the Zaar robot slapped me for that so I had to leave it out. Litchies are delicious in fruit salad.

3. 3

   Hard fruits like apple are not really suitable.

4. 4

   Grapes can be added, or any other soft fuits. If granadillas (grenadillas, whatever) are unobtainable, leave out, but they do lend an exotic flavour. We also use ripe guavas or canned guavas, chopped.

5. 5

   Peel and chop the fresh fruits, but not into small pieces: they should be roughly a small bite each. If you added slightly sour fruits (like fresh pineapple chunks) you will have to add some sugar.

6. 6

   Drain any canned fruits, but keep the syrup.

7. 7

   In a large bowl gently mix the fruits.

8. 8

   Here you have to eyeball the fruit salad and guess how much juice or syrup you want to add. Let's say you decide on 1 1/2 cups. Add the vanilla to the juice/syrup.

9. 9

   I'm mentioning "juice" because there are fantastic pure fruit juices available, which can be used instead of the syrup from cans.

10. 10

    Beware fruits like blueberries, which will stain the entire salad.

11. 11

    You can, if you like, add a sweet citrussy liqueur like Cointreau or Van der Hum, but usually kids love this dessert so keep that in mind.

12. 12

    I didn't mention oranges: unless very carefully cleaned and every scrap of white pith removed, they will eventually lend a bitter taste to the fruit salad. Berries like strawberries can be used, but tend to go too soft.

13. 13

    The salad usually stands a few hours or overnight before serving. And no, it will not last forever because the soft fruits might go mushy and/or discolour.

14. 14

    This is ideal for a hot summer's day, after a rich lunch. As kids we never ate it with anything, but of course it can be served with ice cream, cream or custard.