Public Service Announcement — Don’t Miss Out on Fresh Fruit!

It’s summer! We are at the height of summer with its most glorious offering — incredible fruit! It’s so tasty and such a brief window that I occasionally (as in — most of the summer) wind up buying too much. That was the case this week, when the freshness overtook me and on Friday I realized we had apples, bananas, black cherries, rainier cherries, red grapes, cotton candy grapes, peaches, nectarines, pineapple and oranges in the house.

Did I mention there are just two of us? And it wasn’t like we had just one piece of any of this.

I also noticed that the peaches and nectarines weren’t faring so well as they ripened. They weren’t all that awesome to start with and now were getting too soft, with loose skin (wait, am I describing myself here?), but I absolutely refuse to let food go to waste (except my waist), so I looked in the cupboard and discovered a box of Krusteaz cobbler mix. Honestly, I have no idea where this came from. I never cook from a box. Luckily, it had an expiration date of 2017, so what the hell? I’ll try it.

We didn’t have enough peaches and nectarines for a whole cobbler, but luckily, we also had too much fresh pineapple, and the proportions were just right. The next part took under ten minutes:

• Washed and cut up the peaches and nectarines and put them in a loaf pan
• Placed an equivalent amount of (already cut) pineapple in the other pan
• Added three tablespoons of sugar and two teaspoons of cornstrarch to each pan and stirred until coated
• Made the cobbler topping according to the box (the mix + one egg, stirred ’til crumbly, divided evenly between the two pans, then drizzled with a stick of melted butter)
• And tossed it all in the oven.Here’s what came out:
  

Oh, Dear Lord in Heaven, thank you for this bounty that is fresh fruit cobbler!

Luckily, we had some Caribbean Coconut gelato in the freezer for the pineapple one, and we have a little Donvier ice cream maker (really little — makes a single scoop of ice cream), so my husband quickly whipped up a small batch of vanilla ice cream for the peach (we didn’t have heavy cream, so he used half & half and condensed milk, which worked beautifully), and voila — no fruit thrown away (this week) and bad peaches put to good use. Also, five peaches and two cups of pineapple that probably would not have gotten eaten seemed to disappear in under 48 hours (I’m about to polish off the last of it as soon as I finish this post, so…healthy! Amirite?)

Part Two of the PSA — grapes freeze! In fact, frozen grapes are the ideal treat to take on a summer hike. They are cool and energy boosting right when you need them. And since Cotton Candy Grapes are only in season for two weeks, this is a great way to keep that flavor going for months (I’d say year-round, but they won’t last that long, unless you have a huge grape budget and an enormous freezer).

I hope you have a very happy, healthy summer. I hope you have a great farmers market, farm stand or green grocer who can provide you with the freshest picks of the season, before it’s all gone. And most importantly, I hope you’ll allow yourself to indulge in the amazing treats this time of year provides.

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Summer & Happiness go together like fruit, cobbler topping and ice cream. Be Happy!