May is Mango Month: I can can!

Each month this year, I plan to give myself some sort of challenge, to try to improve how I'm doing in that particular area.  In January, I did the Clean Out the Cupboards Challenge to use up the excess food in my pantry and spend as little as possible at the stores.  Last month, I did the Drugstore Bootstrap Challenge to build up my Extra Care Bucks from CVS and my Register Rewards from Walgreens.  In March and April, I challenged myself to Give Back...One Coupon at a Time.

May (and now June) is Mango Month here at Frugal Follies!  You see, I have two large mango trees in my backyard, full of fruit about to ripen.  Too many years, I've wasted this great resource by just using a few and letting the rest fall on the ground.

Last week, I did quite a bit of canning, and was able to make 14 half-pint jars of mango jam and 10 jars of mango chile sauce. (I'll share the recipe for mango jam this week on Frugal Food Thursday.) I gave some away to middle daughter's teachers; more will be on its way to my youngest's teachers and to the bus drivers.

I have another 20 or so greenish-purple mangoes inside ripening. And fully-ripe mangoes are falling from the highest branches of the tree, which I can't reach even with a ladder and a pruning saw on a 10-foot pole. Yes, the tree is that big. Generally I get rid of the ones that hit the ground, since the bugs usually get to them first.

I'll be doing a little more canning later on in the week. And there are still plenty of green mangoes on the tree that are within my range, so I'll be getting more later on this week. And then that will be it for mangoes this year...

Got any other good ideas of things to make with mangoes?  Let me know!