We get most of our fruits and vegetables from the mercado. I do not like my tomatoes or avocados purchased from a cooler because the flavor and texture changes so buying at the mercado pretty much insures that these items are fresh off the farm and not refrigerated. While we were out looking for some home items we came across a man selling juice oranges, mandarin oranges and mangos several blocks past the mercado. It looked to me like he picks the fruit fresh from his own trees and drives to this spot each morning to sell what is seasonal.
This photo above shows just some of the fruits I keep at hand. The bananas look a bit dark but they will be used to make Banana Bread and the avocado is not for guacamole although we do love it, I make a Bebidas (fruit smoothie) with them. I will give you the recipe below.
The juice oranges were 25 for $1, the mangoes were eight for $1 and the star fruit was free. Yes, seems that my friend Miguel needed some repairs done to his Lada and his mechanic has a star fruit tree that was overflowing with ripe fruit. He let us pick what we wanted. Bananas are .05 cents each or some days 4 for .25 cents depending on the size and the avocado’s run 3 for a $1 most places unless they are really big and then it can be 3 large for $2. There is a man who sells naranjilla juice a 10 oz cup for .25 cents and another sells tiny hard-boiled quail eggs 5 for .50 cents they are one of Joe’s favorite snacks when he shops with me. He always finds a reason to wander to the front of the mercado for these tiny eggs.
Avocado Fruit Smoothie or Aguacate Bebida
- 1 Large Ripe ready to eat Avocado
- 8 oz. water
- 8 oz. semidescremada milk or 2%
- 6-8 ice cubes (use less water and more ice cubes if you want it thicker)
- 2 tablespoons sugar
Peel and remove the pit of the avocado and put in blender with all other ingredients. Pulse until the ice is broken up and blend for one minute. It will be the consistency of a milk shake. Enjoy! If you really want to have a treat add a handful of Mora (blackberries) and blend – I normally blend the Mora separately and strain as I do not like the seeds in my drink, then I put the thick juice in an ice-cube tray and freeze. I would add one or two cubes to my avocado bebita for that special flavor. Makes 4 servings
Out of this world, you will never want any other fruit smoothie once you taste avocado….
Finding our Paradise in South America 
Hey Nancy!
It is awesome that you can have 25 oranges for a dollar; you call them juice orange; are they good for eating as well?
The idea of a GREEN smoothie seems to strange! I tried guacamole for the first time the other day, and I really liked it. I don’t know if I liked it enough that I would drink a whole smoothie of that green stuff, though.
If I am ever offered an avocado smoothie, I may take a sip and then we can work from there.
Have a great weekend!
Chantal
Hi Chantal – I guess you could eat them but they are full of seeds, so I squeeze them for juice – not to sweet — not to tart, just right. As to the Green Smoothie – I felt the same way, avocado’s don’t seem to be a fruit to me because of guacamole but once I had the first one I was hooked. Actually this morning Joe and I went to the mercado and for $1.25 each I had the avocado and Joe had a melon smoothie. excellent. You also have a wonderful weekend. We bought crab over a pound for $7 so I am going to find a recipe and make crab cakes for dinner tonight.
This is one of the reasons why we’re moving there in Salinas. We love seafood, vegies and fruits. Seafood in Sta Rosa is cheap and really fresh straight from the boat or you can go to La Libertad for all those items. The mercado there covers several blocks and you have a lot of choices. Prices you have mentioned are almost the same as in La Libertad except for the avocado at 5 pieces for a dollar. Brown egg (is it native and organic?) is 10 cents each. A huge papaya is $2.50 but if you walk away, they will give it to you at $2.00. A small papaya here at Costco will cost you $3.95. The size of that papaya is 4 times bigger than that in Costco.
Rollie – We eat better than almost any time in our lives, exception would be when I was a kid. My father was raised on a farm and after my parents married he started his own little farm in our backyard. We always had fresh beef and pork, we had a chicken coop filled with laying hens so always had fresh eggs and chicken for soup. We drank unpasteurized milk straight from the cow and no one ever got sick. My father also had a huge garden up the country so we had fresh veggies well into the winter because he knew how to store them in the root cellar. There were different types of apple, plum, peach and cherry trees so Mom and Grandma Kielar would can everything we could not eat. That was the good life, we had little money there we eight of us, six kids and Mom and Dad. We lived next door to Mom’s parents so we never had a baby sitter. Oh the memories!
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I have missed your articles over the past few weeks and am glad you have returned! Your writing style is so smooth, it is like you are talking directly to your readers.
Mike Eberhard
Altos del Maria, Panama
Good Morning Mike, thanks your comment means a lot to me. Have a great week back in Panama..
I have two avocado trees and my late wife loved smoothies made from them, especially the Haas variety–black with rumpled skin. I usually would add 1 tsp of vanilla or almond and like you, or occasionally some other fruit, like blueberries, which don’t overpower the avocado. Sometimes, I will substitute vanilla yogurt instead of milk for a different taste, or frozen vanilla yogurt and leave out the sugar.
Good Morning Malcolm – thanks for your comment. I will need to try the yogurt, I love it just with the milk so I can’t make myself do anything else with them.
The fruit looks fabulous. It made my mouth water. I can’t imagine having papaya fresh everyday along with tomatoes, avacadoes, and …….. Awesome. Fresh fruit, veggies, and seafood are real enticing reasons to relocate to Ecuador along with the weather, culture, and environment. June ’12 seems a long way off, but there is lots to do to be able to get there. Blogs are better than a carrot dangling in front of me to get things done. Thanks for your photos.
Twila, thanks for your comment. We are blessed to have such a variety of fresh items at really great prices and we know it. Hope your dream comes true for you and your family.