Summer fruit... an abundance.

My sister was kind enough to share her over abundance of plums with us.

There were a lot more than I show in this bowl and they were very ripe. This is a busy week for me and I knew I wouldn't have time to make jam or even a tart. 
Time to freeze them for later. Most stone fruit: plum, apricots, peaches, nectarines, pluots, apriums, pleaches and apriarines freeze beautifully. By the way I made those last two names up, theses days they are making some interesting combinations ;-)
 
I had forgotten how to process/cut the stone fruit for easy freezing. 
Here's a quick reminder so you can save that summer abundance.
Start with a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. 
Some stone fruit cling to their pits, which is the pits !

You can see how messy those top few plums are, and I lost a lot of juice trying to wrestle the pit out.

Here's one I gave up on. I think, Bob ended up eating that one.




Then I remembered what I call the mango trick. I first learned this technique while living on Maui with a mango tree in my backyard. We would cut on either side of the huge hairy seed and have two lovely halves to feast on. It works amazingly well to do the same thing with stone fruit.

Start by looking for the crease in your piece of fruit, that will indicate where the pit is lurking.

You want to cut just slightly to one side of the stem end, parallel to the crease. Do the same thing to the other side.

You will have have lots of lovely halves, pit-free!

You will notice some waste of the flesh on either side of the pit, you can remove this with two cuts on either side of the pit.

Look at all that beautiful fruit you have to freeze. Cover that with another sheet of waxed paper and stick it in your freezer. When they have froze solid, remove them from the cookie sheet and store in a ziplock bag. Don't forget to label it with the contents and date.

Here are a few recipes to use that summer fruit:

Rustic fruit tart
Summer fruit tart
Clafouti
Easy fruit jam
Fruit crisp
Fruit ice cream

Enjoy !

This year in review: part one.

Hoping you all are having a great holiday season.
Less than a week ago I made my last batch of almond toffee.
Christmas Eve and Christmas day saw us dining in and out with various family members.
Today we bid our daughter farewell as she drove back to her current place of employment.
Soon we will be spending New Years Eve with family on the central California coast.
Busy, busy, busy, which is why I have not posted much lately.

This is a good time to look back over the past year of foodiness and post my favorite recipes from each month. So it it not too overwhelming for me or you, I am doing it in two parts.

Here are my favorites from last January through June.

1) Laurie's Chili: such a great winter/ ski season dish. So easy to make and easy to make meaty or vegan depending on your proclivities. Serve it with my cornbread or millet muffins and a green salad !!

2) Green Soup: I make this more than any other recipe from 2012. Green soup has become a weekly part of our food intake. I do love it with parsnips for that creamy texture.

3) Brussel Sprouts, my way: I made these tiny cabbages as a side dish this Christmas Eve.  My 9 year old great-niece adored them, asked for seconds and thirds !! Just goes to show you, anything if prepared well can be a hit !!

4) Sundried Tomato Pate in Collard Leaves: These little bundles sound so strange but are so amazingly tasty !!

5) Zucchini Bites: what a great way to use summer squash and what a delicious appetizer !! You could make these same bites with grated carrots for a winter treat.

6) Summer Fruit Tart: This dessert got such rave reviews wherever it went. To winterize it use kiwis, Fuyu persimmons, oranges and pomegranate seeds, yum.

Strawberry Custard Tarts

My daughter used to like to watch Sandra Lee's Food Network show Semi-Homemade and I liked to make fun of her for watching it.
That is my introduction to this very simple recipe for fresh strawberry tarts. It also came about when I wanted an easy dessert and was looking through my pantry, I found vanilla pudding mix and frozen pie crust.

Semi-homemade Fresh Strawberry Custard Tarts
Yield 12 small tarts

Ingredients

12 large fresh strawberries.

Custard:
1 package vanilla pudding mix
1 1/4 cup cold milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract (optional)

Crust
1 frozen pie crust (half a package)


1) Whisk 1 1/4 cup cold milk into a package of Trader Joe's vanilla pudding mix*.
Add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1/4 teaspoon almond extract. Chill.

2) Preheat oven to 375 F. Allow on frozen pie crust to come to room temperature.

3) Roll out on wax paper.

4) Use a jar lid or whatever to cup into 12 circles. I found a large mouth canning ring was perfect. Use a fork to make lots of tiny pricks in the dough.

5) Lightly grease a muffin tin. Fill each cup with a circle of pie crust. Press them in to fit the cup.

6) Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes depending on how thin the crust is, allow to cool before removing them from the muffin tins. It is OK if they shrink down a bit, mine did.

7) Now you have all the components and you can put them together right before you serve them, that way the crust won't get soggy. Take a tablespoon of pudding and fill a tart shell.

8) Cut up the strawberries in any way you like and stick them in the pudding. You can use any kind of fresh fruit you like, raspberries, blueberries, apricots, peaches, etc...

9) The pudding and crusts should last for a week in the fridge.


* I just found out they don't carry it anymore :-( I am sure there is something equivalent at your local grocer or Whole Foods. You can also use the kind they have in the dairy case, Kozy Shack makes a decent pudding.

Laurie’s Light Lemon Curd

Lemon curd is very tasty on the millet muffins !!

I love alliterations as you can tell.
I love my version of lemon curd as well.
Uh oh, that was starting to sound like a corny rhyme.
Quick, cut to the chase.
Lemon curd is a thick, rich topping that is classically used on scones and makes a wonderful addition to tarts, cheesecake, yogurt or a spoon.
Since lemon curd is made of butter, sugar and egg yolks, "light" is a relative term.
Traditional recipes call for lots of egg yolks which is why I like my "light" version better.

Look at the beautiful color of these yolks. We love the fresh eggs from our four hens !!

Laurie's Light Lemon Curd

Ingredients
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
grated zest of one lemon
2 tbsp. water
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup butter

1) Begin by zesting your lemon and then juicing it to make 1/4 cup of juice.
2) Mix the juice and zest in a small saucepan with 2/3 cups sugar and 2 tablespoons water.

3) Whisk in three eggs yolks.

 4) Cut the 1/2 cup of butter into pieces.

5) Add to the saucepan and set over low heat.
6) Stir constantly but gently with a wooden spoon.

7) Bring the mixture to a simmer and cook for about 1 minute until the sauce thickens slightly.

8) Strain through a fine sieve into a glass bowl or jar.

It can be served warm over ice cream or on scones or allowed to chill and used in fruit tarts or on cheesecake.

It must be store in the fridge and will last for up to a week. It freezes beautifully.
This recipes makes about 1 cup of curd.

Pumpkin Pie

Winter squash is now in season. As I drive up the northern California coast I see fields of pumpkins of all sizes, shapes and colors. The great thing is that most winter squash make great pies. I have tried butternut squash, sugar pie pumpkins, delicata squash and blue moon Cinderella pumpkins.

Recently a friend gave me  giant blue hubbard squash, I wasn't sure whether to keep it as a pet or cook it up. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo, this thing was huge, probably 20 pounds. Bob even had trouble cutting it up for baking.
Here's a photo I found on the internet.

So after baking it, and making it into puree in my food processor ( sorry I didn't photo document that either), I decided to try it out in pie and cupcakes( I'll post about those soon).
What I didn't use, I froze in freezer bags in two cup portions.

Here's my classic pumpkin pie recipe.

Pumpkin Pie

Preheat oven to 425 F

Prepare your favorite single pie crust in a deep glass pie plate.

In a mixing bowl place:

2 cups  pumpkin/winter squash puree
2/3 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp.cloves
1 3/4 cup whole milk

Blend well.
Pour the filling in the pie crust.
If you have them use a pie crust guard and a drip guard.

Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce temperature to 350 F and bake for 45 to 50 more minutes.
Allow to cool at least 2 hours before serving with whipped cream.
I think pumpkin pie is even better the second day :-)