I love it when I shop with my kids and they spend time asking me about all the different fruits and vegetables.  Today we discovered Green Almonds!

I’d never seen green almonds before so it was quite fun to discover what they were and what we were meant to do with them once we got them home.  Knowing absolutely nothing about them, we consulted trusty Mr Google and he was very helpful in pointing us in the right direction.

When we searched Wikipedia for green almonds, it gave us one of the most informative lessons on the almond; the tree, the shells, the skins, the seed! You name it, it’s there.  But it didn’t really tell us what to do to the green almonds in order to make them ready to eat.

Next on the list looked promising! The Hungry Mouse presented us with a great post that was really informative – the pics are beautiful too (much better than mine).  The great thing about this post is that the comments were as good as the post itself and we learnt that many people actually eat the green almonds skin and all – don’t bother peeling the fuzzy green skin just crunch on in!  I’ve just tried it and it was OK.  Nothing earth shattering but fine.  I felt as though it might be a good thing to eat if my day had been a little lacking in fibre!

We then happened upon two recipes that sounded fantastic – both from Poh’s Kitchen (so my kids were immediately sold on these).  Poh’s Wild Rice with Green Almonds looks very exotic, sounds yummy and seems fairly simple to achieve – we think we’ll try that one on the weekend. Her other recipe that related to green almonds was Green Almond Milk – a milky drink served over ice.  Quite Middle Eastern and looked as though it would go beautifully with a hot curry or some great lebanese food.

After tasting a few at home and thinking it over, I think they could be really nice lightly warmed through in a shallow fry pan with a handful of mixed olives, some fresh bay leaves, peppercorns, a few birds eye chillies (for a touch of heat and a shot of colour), a spray of pink sea salt and a chunk of Persian Fetta on top.  This could work with the green almonds either shelled or unshelled.

Or you could go the sweet option and incorporate them blended or processed into a flourless chocolate or orange cake (for a gentle green almond flavour).

So there’s our discovery for the day – green almonds!  We may never see them on the shelf again but it gave the girls and I an excuse to put our heads together for a few minutes.

Have you ever tasted green almonds?  Have you ever cooked with them?  How adventurous do you encourage your kids to be?