Yep! It’s that time of year again, already. The mangoes are dropping. Well I guess something has to drop, we haven’t gotten any rain to speak of since the very beginning of May, just before the triathlon.

I thought that maybe we could keep up with the falling fruit if we did a batch every other day. But not really. We have to do it every day. At least it’s better than slipping on them in the driveway, though. I always feel guilty about letting all that food go to waste if I don’t have time to process them.

Here’s how we do it. We go out wit a big bowl or a bucket and pick up the ones that don’t have huge gouges or bruises or dents. We bring them in and wash them with dish soap and a little bleach. Some have all sorts of grit, so we need to scrub them well. We rinse them and put them into another bowl. Then we cut them up into 3 or 4 chunks each. Then we put them through our Champion juicer.

A nice, thick glop comes out which has the consistency of pudding. We put it in plastic containers and into the freezer, or we eat/drink it. Sometimes we make smoothies with it. This is the best way to deal with this particular variety since they’re so stringy. The strings just get caught in the juicer and we don’t have to pick them out of our teeth !

It’s a lot of work. The other morning, between gathering, washing, “juicing”, and cleaning up afterwards, I’d been at it for two or three hours (well, okay, I took a few breaks to check e-mail, or fold laundry), but it was a long time. Michael and I did around 50 or 60 of them last evening. Cleaning the juicer (and the kitchen….sometimes globs of mango end up on the cabinets or in our hair) afterwards is the most painstaking part.

We’re going to have to have a mango blender drink party again. Mango daiquiri or margarita, anyone? We’re running out of containers and freezer space!