Grapefruit and Banana Salad

By default, I am not very experimental when it comes to cooking. When I get bored of nutritious homemade food, I resort to eating out. But when it came to Devansh, I couldn’t possibly give him outside food. Thus started the journey of this mom trying out different baby-friendly and now toddler-friendly recipes. But there are some moms who are genuinely enthusiastic about cooking, for their kids as well as the entire family. My ex-colleague, Josceline is one of them. You must know what I mean if you’ve read about her effort in making a healthy, all-natural first birthday cake for her daughter, Emily. On her Facebook wall, I keep seeing pictures of some seriously drool-worthy dishes that she makes. A while back, Josceline had written to me about the grapefruit salad that she had made, which Emily loved. I asked her for the pics and the recipe as I knew I was not going to be so adventurous as to try out grapefruit in a salad. :-) Today, she sent me the recipe and the pics of each step. As you can see from the pics, she got help from a pro chef while making the salad. :-D Thank you Josceline and Emily for making the salad, and thanks so much Glenn for clicking the pics.

I’m retaining what Josceline wrote as is. Josceline writes: “It took me a whole year of walking past the massive grapefruit cart at the farmers’ market, whining, before Glenn agreed to buy a grapefruit. For me, this fruit brings strong memories of my grandfather carrying home a large canvas bag of fruits from his Sunday morning Crawford Market trip. I couldn’t wait to introduce Em to this fruit I grew up loving.

But after so many years, I had forgotten how to eat a grapefruit. So when Glenn cut it up like an orange and I ate it, I gagged – it was bitter and inedible, even though we had asked the farmer for tips and bought the perfect grapefruit from his stall. Glenn’s attempts to make grapefruit juice were an equally large flop – he LOVED the plain grapefruit and the juice, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. Em is still very impressionable and imitates her Dada; and so she ate it too, albeit, with a very funny expression on her face.

Taking to the Internet, we realized that the peel, pith, and membranes are not to be eaten. This recipe is adapted from the ones I found online, which involved a lot of sugar or honey. This has no sugar, less honey, and the banana brings in the added sweetness and cuts through the acidity of the grapefruit. The recipe serves 2 greedy adults and 1 hungry child. It’s fairly easy to follow and our little Em loves helping out, tearing up the grapefruit and squishing everything together. The finished product vanishes from the mixing bowl within 15 minutes of being ready.”

Grapefruit and Banana Salad

Print Recipe

Recipe of grapefruit and banana salad that has no sugar and very little honey, making it ideal for toddlers.

Author Mukta Tikekar

Ingredients

• 1 grapefruit
• 1 thinly sliced large yellow banana
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 cup thick yogurt

Instructions

• Cut up a grapefruit and remove the flesh from its segments. Discard all the membranes or it will taste bitter.
• Mix in 1 thinly-sliced, large, yellow banana.
• Mix in about 1 tablespoon of honey.
• Mix in 1 cup of thick yogurt.
• Stir up the salad together.
• And done! Now to eat some right out of the mixing bowl.