Tag Archives: fruit

19Apr / 2011

There Are No Words

to describe how stressed I am right now and how badly I have needed spring break to be here for well over a month. Even if I could somehow express it, I am too sick of typing things and staring at screens to bother. However, everything isn’t terrible, and some things have been making me smile lately:

The tulips have come and gone.

And they were beautiful while they lasted.

Thanks to the previous owners and their strange ideas about flower placement, mystery plants are popping up all over the backyard.

I'm not complaining, but I might relocate them to more logical places once they've finished blooming.

While I can't manage to keep a maidenhair fern alive inside, this one seems to be doing just fine without my help.

These tiny white flowers smell a lot like wisteria and have taken over the back fence.

Loquats (what I've been calling Japanese plums) are ripe now, and they are messy and delicious.

Baby blueberries

Baby blackberries

Baby raspberries

 

(And spring break, if you happen to be reading this, please hurry the hell up.)

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30Jul / 2010

This week has been full of:

Look at all those spikes!

I’ve had my eye on this spooky-looking plant in my parents’ front yard for a while. It finally bloomed!

This flower looks like it might be carnivorous.

These pears make me think of big ol' grapes.

The pear trees out front have been weighed down with these tiny, sweet pears for the last couple of weeks.  The limbs were almost at the breaking point when I finally got out there to pick them.

Have you ever had pear cake? If not, you're missing out.

These spotty little apples are some of the sweetest I've ever tasted.

Thanks to my Nana and our neighbor, Granny, I’ve recently come into a lot of apples.  There’s no way I could eat or bake them all into something, so I decided to can them.  Come October when the four of us are 500 miles away and getting homesick, maybe pie made with these apples from home will make us feel better?

We've also got lots of figs.

Our neighbors and family members (the ones with the cows that Chowder and Maxine love to watch) have a couple of fig trees covered in figs they aren’t going to use. We couldn’t live with ourselves if we let all those beautiful figs go to waste!

We're drowning in baby figs.

As well as big ass figs--this is not a pear.

We will more than likely be packing and moving next week, but hopefully I’ll still be able to share the sweet treats I’m making with all this beautiful fresh (and local, and free!)  fruit.

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11May / 2010

Homemade Fig Jam

Great with greek yogurt, cream cheese, and toast.

I’m making a real effort to clean out my cabinets.  Moving food really sucks, but so does throwing it away, so I’vestopped going out to eat for a while.  One of the things I decided to tackle was my large stash of frozen fruit.  My grandmother gave me a ton of figs last summer (I think?), and I didn’t have time to use them all up so I stuck them in the freezer until I could decide what to do with them.  While I really, really love eating fresh figs as a snack, I don’t feel the same way about their fairly mushy frozen counterparts so I tried to come up with something that would fix this texture problem.  The obvious solution: fig jam!

Now, I’m crazy about fruit jam.  It’s delicious on so many things (greek yogurt, toast, dessert pizza, as a filling for cookies, etc.).  Also, when someone asks what you’re doing in the next room and you respond, “making jam,” they’re always a little impressed (all I’ve ever wanted is to be cool).

To make this delicious jam, all you need is:

  • fresh or frozen figs (I had about six cups of frozen figs, and they cooked down to fill two of the 12 oz jars pictured above)
  • sugar
  • lemons
  • clean glass jars with bands and fresh lids
  • a pot big enough to seal the jars in

Dump the fruit, a cup of sugar, and the juice of a lemon into a saucepan.  Cook on medium-low heat until the separate ingredients start to look like jam.  While it’s cooking, heat up a big pot of water deep, but not deep enough to submerge the jars.  Put the empty jars into the pot and heat the water up until it reaches a steady but not roaring boil.  Try and keep it at this point until the jam is ready.  Stick a spoon into the mixture then take it out and blow on it–if the mixture starts to gel then it’s ready to pour into the jars.  Pour in the jam and put the lids on the jars, then let them boil for at least ten minutes.  After that, take them out and let them cool on the counter overnight.  Before storing them, make sure they’ve actually sealed by checking the jar lids.

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05Feb / 2010

Meyer Lemon Pound Cake Recipe

I’ve been struggling to figure out what to do with those beautiful Meyer lemons I picked up at Johnny Becnel’s while in New Orleans last weekend. I wanted to make something that didn’t require too much work (we made Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon for dinner last night, which are fairly time-consuming by themselves) that would still be delicious and good with coffee for breakfast today, so I chose pound cake.

Meyer Lemons from Johny Becnel's Farm Fresh Produce in Belle Chasse, LA

Meyer Lemons from Johny Becnel's Farm Fresh Produce in Belle Chasse, LA

There are several reasons I love pound cake more than bread or cake. First of all, I’m not a big fan of icing pound cake has none. Secondly, pound cake is more moist than either bread or cake. And finally, pound cake is really rich but not too sweet–meaning I can eat it for breakfast without feeling queasy all day.

Meyer Lemon Pound Cake, shortly before being devoured for breakfast this morning

I used this Meyer Lemon Pound Cake recipe found at My Husband Cooks.  I was forced to make a few alterations because I don’t have a stand mixer and I didn’t feel like going to the store.  Still, I am very pleased with how it turned out (as are my friends, who ate over half the cake last night).  I may use the lemons I have left to make a couple more to freeze for special occasions.  The recipe calls for:

  • 2 C  all-purpose flour
  • 1 3/4 C sugar
  • 1 C  butter (2 sticks; I used Smart Balance because I didn’t feel like going to the store and that was all we had, but I’ll probably use butter next time)
  • 3   large eggs
  • 3   egg yolks
  • 2   meyer lemons (zest and juice; I do not have a zester, so I just used the juice and the end result was still very lemony)
  • 2 t  vanilla extract
  • 1 t   baking powder
  • 1/2 t  salt

Preheat oven to 325° and grease and flour a 9 x 5 loaf pan.  Cream together softened butter and sugar.  When the butter and sugar have been mixed thoroughly, add the eggs and yolks one at a time, mixing after each addition.  Add the lemon zest and juice (or just juice if you’re me), and mix thoroughly. Add the vanilla, baking powder and salt, and mix thoroughly. Add the flour in 1/2 C increments, slowly mixing until it’s just completely integrated–do not over mix. Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake in the oven for 75-80 min. When the cake is done, a toothpick will pull clean from the center.  Allow 15 minutes for cooling, then serve!

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06Dec / 2009

The Best Banana Bread of All Time

I feel very confident that this is the only banana bread recipe I will ever use or need to use. I’ve had it so long I don’t remember where I got it (my grandmother? my neighbor? my aunt?), and it really is a breeze to make. Maybe it’s not the best thing in the world for me, but I can name all of the ingredients and it’s a great way to use up really ripe bananas.

So ripe I made sure to check them for maggots first.

So ripe I made sure to check them for maggots first.

To make this delicious bread, you’ll need:

  • three large, ripe bananas (the riper the better)
  • 2 C self-rising flour
  • 1 C sugar
  • 1/2 C oil
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 325°.  In a smallish bowl, mash the bananas with a fork.  In a mixing bowl, stir the flour and sugar together. (At this point, my mother has taught me to put a little flour on my face to make it seem like I’ve been working a lot harder than I actually have.)  Then add the bananas, oil, and eggs and mix well.  At this point, feel free to fold in nuts, chocolate chips, or anything else your heart desires!  Pour mixture into a greased and floured loaf pan and bake for one hour, or until golden brown.  Serve with coffee and watch your friends and family swoon.  This bread is great hot, and it’s equally great cold the next day as breakfast (if there’s any left, which there isn’t around here).

They should look like this when you're done with them.

They should look like this when you're done mashing them.

This is what the perfect loaf of banana bread looks like.

This is what the perfect loaf of banana bread looks like.

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