Healthy Living

what’s in a ñame?

Saturday morning, we traveled to CrossFit South Cobb in Smyrna to work out with 40 other CrossFitters. Despite the cold temperature, we managed to stay warm and get in a good team workout. We left the gym at noon, and stopped by Publix on our way home to pick up some groceries. In the produce department, we stumbled upon a root-looking vegetable that the sign identified as Name. Thinking that someone had just forgotten to type in the name when creating the sign, we asked an employee about it and she said it’s actually called ñame. Turns out, ñame is an excellent source of potassium and zinc.

So we thought, why not give it a try? James is addicted to homemade hasbrowns, so he chose that as the dish of choice. The skin of ñame looked much like tree bark, and peeling it with a peeler proved to be quite the task–or maybe that’s because I had just worked out and was starving.

Once we peeled it, we discovered it became quite slimy. But we diced it up anyways and James prepped it in our food proccessor.

It made quite a dense hashbrown (moreso than a potato hashbrown), and James gobbled it up, alongside an omelette. (That’s organic ketchup, in case you’re wondering about high fructose corn syrup.)

Since we were on a roll with trying new produce, we also picked up a starfruit (or Carambola) at the store. The skin is slightly waxy and feels similar to a bell pepper, though not quite as firm.

I just trimmed off the brown edges and sliced every 1/2 an inch.

It’s really hard to describe the flavor of this fruit. It’s very subtle and light. I found that others have described the taste as a mixture of apple, pear and citrus. And I agree, though ours was a subtle version of this combination. Starfruit seems to have many benefits. Besides an abundance of antioxidants, Vitamins A and C, and iron, the fruit has also been used to cure hangovers and nausea. I’m thinking that if this curing knowledge spreads, it may be tough for grocery stores to keep this fruit in stock.
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Haley

I'm a full-time wife and semi-stay-at-home mom to four young kids. Day to day, I help my husband with his small business, but when I have any extra time, you can find me cooking or being active outdoors with my family. We live at the foothills of the North Georgia mountains and are embracing modern homesteading month by month.

1 Comment

  1. Star fruit is so pretty. 🙂 Where do you work out? I see CFA but I can’t decide if that’s Cross Fit Atlanta or Cross Fit Acworth or something else? I live smack in between Cross Fit Atlanta and Cross Fit North Atlanta and work out at CFNA. The owner lives in my ‘hood, so I have to support the locals.

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