fruit and cheese tray

Ingredients:

Gouda cheese
fresh grapes
beautiful serving platter
cheese slicer

Bring fruits and cheese to room temperature.

Arrange fruit and cheese tastefully . . .

cranberry orange relish

Side dish
Vegetarian

Serves 8-10



Ingredients:



1 bag fresh cranberries
2 tangerines or oranges
2 skinny slices tangerine/orange skin
1/2 cup raw sugar (or nearest equivalent)

In blender, chop all the ingredients.

Pour into attractive serving dish.

Great with roast turkey!

baked salmon with fruit salad

Serves 6:

2 pounds fresh salmon fillets

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
Place salmon fillets skin-down on foiled-covered baking sheet.
Bake for about 30 minutes, or until salmon fillets are pink and flake easily with a fork.
Remove from oven and serve with lemon wedges.


Fruit salad:

1 can pineapple slices, unsweetened
2 bananas

Layer a slice of canned unsweetened pineapple and fresh banana slices

***

Review:

5 forks for flavor and ease of preparation.

peach harvest

We harvested a beautiful, fully-laden peach tree last week -- and spent the next several days putting up gallons and gallons of peaches!

The bountiful tree yielded about 600 ripe organically-grown peaches.


By the time our appetites are ready for peaches again, winter will be upon us . . .

**

Recipe for freezing fresh peach slices:

We peeled, pitted and sliced the peaches. They were spooned into plastic Ziploc freezer bags.

We sprinkled each gallon of peach slices with about 1/2 cup sugar and about 1/2 cup lemon juice.

Then the air was squeezed out of the bags as much as possible.

The bags were zipped shut and placed in the freezer.

u pick Michigan blueberries

These are the all-time best blueberries ever! Too bad we don't live in Michigan to pick them throughout the season . . .

I was surprised to learn that blueberries are native to North America -- but now grow throughout the world.

We picked quite a few pounds of blueberries at Earls Farm Market in Fennville, Michigan.
Earls Farm was easy to find, not too far from the highway. The farm is beautifully maintained. Berries ready for picking are easily reached. The whole u pick experience was very well-coordinated and satisfying. Pricing for the berries we picked was reasonable, measured on a scale by the pound.

Also impressive is how easily the blueberries were to transport. We picked them on day 1 and refrigerated them days 2 and 3. Then transported them home day 4. The blueberries arrived in good shape. We are freezing some, eating others fresh, and baking a blueberry pie.

The Blueberry People TM is a producer owned blueberry cooperative that started in 1936 in Michigan. Today they represent over 300 growers in multiple US states, and British Columbia with total sales in excess of $130 million.

The Blueberry People TM market their members' entire fresh blueberry production under the label Naturipe Farms. Naturipe Farms has two equal partners: Chilean associate Hortifruit, SA and Naturipe Berry Growers Cooperative in Watsonville, CA. Naturipe Farms is the marketing arm of all three groups and aims to provide the produce trade with a supply of fresh berries 365 days a year.

applesauce

At the family farm we have apples ripening -- starting to get that streaked-with-red, good-to-eat look!

My recipe for fresh applesauce:

• Pick some apples. (The fruit can range from somewhat green to very ripe.)
• Wash the apples.
• Core the apples
• Peel the apples, if you wish.
• Cut into slices.
• Sprinkle with lemon juice or fruit color preservative such as:
• Put all the sliced apples in a big pot on the stovetop.
• Add a little water.
• Cook over low heat, stirring frequently to prevent scorching.
• When the apples are cooked and texture resembles applesauce, remove from heat and taste.
• Add a little sugar and cinnamon, if you wish.
• Cool mixture to room temperature.
• Serve, refrigerate, or freeze.

Always popular!

Grape snack

Fresh fruit is good tasting and great for health -- especially during the summer months when it is easy to find and the prices are more economical.

So I took a picture of the grapes in our fruit bowl and checked into the health benefits of grapes.

The National Grape Cooperative owns Welchs . There is a lot of information at both websites about the numerous health benefits of eating grapes and drinking grape juice.

Concord grape growers have a lot of pride in their industry. The Concord Grape Association website provides even more detailed studies on the many health benefits of eating Concord grapes.

I try to keep some handy in a bowl on the counter for easy snacking in our household.

better cherry cobbler

This is a redo on the fresh fruit cobbler fiasco of a few days ago.

Pretty simple.

Take the stems and stones out of about

• 1 quart (4 cups) fresh cherries.

Mix with

• 1/3 cup small pearl tapioca

sprinkle with

• 1/3 cup granulated or brown sugar

Mix all the ingredients thoroughly together.

The hard part (for impatient cooks like me):

• Let stand for 15 minutes so the tapioca can start absorbing some of the cherry juice.

Pour into pie plate.

Cover with pie crust from box mix. (I didn't have sufficient counter space to roll out the dough, so I patted it out between my hands and assembled an air-tight crust --in pieces.)

Cook in pre-heated 350 degree F oven until crust is golden brown.

Tasted pretty good.

Small unsweetened fruit pies

Fruit pie in the summer is always a big hit around here. Last night's pies were cooked in pot pie foil pans, making individual servings.

First:
I used a boxed pie crust, adding water to the dry ingredients and mixing in a bowl, per the box instructions.

• 
  

Then I rolled out two small pie crusts for each pie -- enough to make five little two-crust pies. It turned out that I had enough pie crust mix for one extra round for a crust. That round became our only turnover. (Eleven pie crusts rounds total.)

Meanwhile, Guy sliced:
2 apples
1 peach
15 seedless red grapes (approximately)

He mixed them in a bowl with:
2 or 3 tablespoons tapioca
powdered cinnamon to taste
powdered allspice to taste
a splash of lemon juice

Then he divided the fruit mixture evenly amongst

the 6 small pie pans lined with a bottom crust.

I put on the top crusts, trimming off the excess crust overhanging the edge of the pie pans, and cut two slashes in the top of each pie for steam to escape.

• 

The sixth pie, with only one crust ,was treated like a turnover. After the fruit was added to the single crust lining the pan,I folded the excess crust back over the top of the filling -- sort of wrapping it up.

We cooked the pies on a cookie sheet in a 350 degree F oven.

When they start smelling great and turning brown, the pies are done -- about 20 -30 minutes, I guess.


Review:

5 forks for delicious taste and creating demand for more fruit pies!

Not a favorite salad

Seems like I am functioning in a low ebb of culinary capability. Tonight I impulsively bought bok choy for the first time and made a fresh vegetable salad for dinner. I truly thought it would be good: boy choy cabbage, mushrooms, broccoli, chopped raisins, and roasted sunflower seeds with a dressing of plain yogurt plus cinnamon.

The first clue I had that my family didn't like it was the slow progress through the food on the plate. The confirming moment came when Guy sprinkled Kelly's salad with soy sauce -- and she still insisted on eating in (very slowly) rather than ditching the contaminated mixture and refilling her plate with the original concoction.

A promise of yellow seedless watermelon was the key to maintaining peace at dinner. Ah, well . . . maybe tomorrow will bring new inspiration.

I chose not to immortalize this failed salad recipe in a photograph.

Rotel hamburgers and fruit salad

It started out simply. Kelly decided to make Rotel* hamburgers. Easy.

She mixed Rotel tomatoes with:
hamburger meat,
garlic powder,
red pepper,
salt and black pepper.

Meanwhile, I helped out by broiling the hamburger buns

Kelly shaped hamburger patties and browned them in the skillet. Then she added the juice from the Rotel tomatoes and enough water to simmer the meat until done.


Meanwhile, I forgot the broiling hamburger buns. They scorched.
I started over, broiling a new batch.


















* Rotel tomatoes are a spicy canned tomato product manufactured by Conagra. Click the link to read more about them.


Kelly served the hamburgers with a fruit salad of fresh grapes and tomato wedges. (The tomatoes were vine-grown, hydroponic, from Canada -- so ok'd by the FDA to eat raw.)


Delightful !

ice tea deco

Last night Guy demonstrated that a couple pieces of fruit on the edge of the glass makes all the difference in appeal.

Presentation, presentation, presentation.

*recipe*


Ice tea deco

Slice:

limes

Stem:

strawberries

Assemble:

Fit sliced limes and stemmed strawberries over edge of glasses. Fill glasses with chilled ice tea. Serve

***

Ratings:

4 forks for flavor
5 forks for presentation
4 forks for entertainment