“Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Dust off the sun and moon and sing a song of cheer”
Nat King Cole
Some songs will never be forgotten, and some voices will live forever. He was singing the song in his rich, deep, baritone voice {in my head of course} as I caught sight of the sorbet in my reader. Nat King Cole had no clue, but I so knew I was going to make it soon. It sounded easy,breezy and beautiful. What I didn’t know was that I would be walking into the kitchen in the next 10 minutes and whizzing it together.If you own a food processor, or better still, a Thermomix, summer will never be better. My herb garden is absolutely thriving for some unknown reason, the first summer that I’ve had great success with growing herbs. Mint I have always had plenty of, and basil too. For the thyme, rosemary, purple basil, chives, parsley, coriander and oregano I must thank the lovely folk from Hometown Seeds, which specializes in high quality garden and herb seeds, for sending me a selection of herb seeds.I have never been so excited at seeing a lush potful of thyme and the beginnings of rosemary. The thyme is thriving, and I used it in these Strawberry Apple Crumbles here. The rosemary is looking good but will take a while to become ‘plant enough‘ to use. If you saw my overflowing patch of mint you’d turn an envious green! Every neighbour who walks by asks me for some. I often pull it out, roots and all and hand it to them to grow a patch of their own … sharing some mint love! Its a beautiful fresh herb, yet I don’t use it as often as I should.I’ve been hurriedly freezing bags of strawberries this past month as I feared they would disappear with the mercury rising; it’s touching 37C these days. Yet strangely enough, the prices have come down, and the quality improved! Lush, red strawberries are still flooding the market, so what better way to celebrate than to use my frozen berries and make this beautiful sorbet.This sorbet changed the way I look at mint, and makes me guard my mint patch a little more. The frozen delight tantalizes the palette and is bowl licking good … oh-so-refreshing!! I made the recipe from what I remembered reading, which in my case meant that ingredients changed along the way. Proves a point that the memory isn’t as good as it used to be!I added juice of a lime instead of the vanilla extract {I could have sworn I read lime and not extract …sigh!}, and I didn’t register the food colour. Just as well that I didn’t because the natural colour in itself is tantalizing… as was the taste. I urge you to go and buy and freeze strawberries, and whip up this fabulous, no fat delight which makes you welcome summer with open arms. Oh the colours and oh the flavours … A D D I C T I V E!!I had a wee bit that I saved up to pair with chocolate macarons I made for this month. Our theme for April at MacTweets is CHOCOLAT! This month of April, the MacKitchen is being devoted to chocolate. Chocolate Macarons are taking over! Jamie & I called for you to create something sensational, surprising, unique, something beautiful, delectable, tantalizing, something worthy of a Mac Attack using chocolate.Pair it with a novel ingredient which will add texture or flavor or color, something, anything which will accentuate, complement the chocolate flavor and make for one spectacular mac! These chocolate macaron shells paired with a sweet/tart strawberry fresh lime sorbet screamed summer, tantalizing, sensational and delectable.
Do you want to join Jamie and me making MACARONS??
If you do, you are most welcome to join the ‘Attack’. You can find all the information at our dedicated macaron blogMacTweets. The rules for can be foundhere. You can always join this month, or the next if you like. Just drop us a mail or tweet.
What better way to welcome the dreaded HOT days of summer. This is a natural and sensational sorbet to beat the heat. It is fresh and exciting, and a wonderful way to use summers bounty. My mint patch is overflowing and I loved that I could add fresh mint to the strawberries.
Ingredients:
450gms frozen strawberries, thawed at room temperature for twenty minutes {for TM, use straight from the freezer}
1/4 cup minced mint leaves {for TM, no need to mince}
2/3 cup sugar or honey {reduce if the strawberries are sweet. Mine were tart}
Juice of 1 lime
Equipment:
Thermomix or food processor
Method:
Combine all ingredients in the bowl of the Thermomix {speed 10 / 20seconds, use spatula to stir} or a food processor and process until smooth.
Transfer to the freezer, if necessary, to harden, or serve immediately. Garnish with sprigs of fresh mint.
YIELD: about 1 pint. TIME: about 5 minutes. NOTE: Depending on the sweetness of your berries, you may wish to adjust the sweetener or omit it entirely.
Copyright Deeba@Passionate About Baking
“Food is a central activity of mankind and one of the single most significant trademarks of a culture.”
Mark Kurlansky
I am fascinated by what Katie ate … what she ate all winter, summer and in the seasons in between! Do I sound obsessed? Well maybe I am, but since the word sounds rather harsh, I shall stick with ‘fascinated‘. You might have guessed. Yes indeed, I have a new favourite blog on the block, and this one is an utterly charming one – What Katie Ate, ‘all the way from Sydney‘; a ‘foodie photography blog’.
I discoveredher photography quite a while ago googling for pictures for the Daring Bakers Pavlova Challenge, and I was completely smitten. I love the old world rustic charm her pictures offer, very retro and very classic. They instantly struck a chord with me, and dragged me into their realm. I was lost amidst her foodie pictures for a long time, with recipes that seemed to take a new meaning. Food here meant so much more…
A bookmarking frenzy followed, but I soon got involved with work at home and completely forgot about the recipes until I luckily found the very last batch of plums in the market a week ago. Yes, the very last as now they are truly gone. A cherry chocolate clafoutis from What Katie Ate was high on my list, the recipe easy as could be from Julia ChildsMastering The Art of French Cooking. At the very bottom of the post, I read that any stone fruit would work; you could see me SMILE!
I made Olive Oil Schiacciata from her blog last week, and some Triple Chocolate Toblerone Muffins day before yesterday. I wanted to make the clafoutis as well, but was dog tired that day. A quick check of the ingredients late at night had the men in the house peering over my shoulder telling me how hungry they still were, and that the dessert looked so good. There was no escape, and as promised, I had the clafoutis going yesterday morning.
A dessert as simple as this is not to be given the pass. It takes all of ten minutes to put together, about 30 minutes of baking, and 10 minutes of cleaning up. What luxury! Oh and of course, about an hour extra to take pictures, but then, that’s the joy of food blogging! What is food without pictures???
I made individual servings in ramekins I had picked up from Sydney a couple of years ago. Maybe they were a little smaller than regular ramekins, and I had some batter remaining so I filled up a few mini molds too, adding my last few frozen cherries to the plums. Luckily Katie mentioned that the clafoutis deflates pretty soon, so it was a race to get the pictures, but the puffiness was gone within 5 minutes of the blighters being out of the oven. The little rum baba molds really puffed up beautifully, and I am bummed I couldn’t get a decent pic of those… Well, whatevah!!
So here we are, with a final au revoir to my favourite fruity season. Come back soon please!
Notes to self: Don’t forget to add some sugar on top next time. That vanilla sugar would have done these some good. Also, if the plums are tart, like mine were, remember to add 2-3 extra tbsp of sugar. Another thing, don’t over-bake the custards. I should have really taken the rum baba molds out 5-7 minutes before the rest, as they got ever so slightly rubbery. A smattering of chocolate chips would have added to the indulgence, and next year I might substitute 1/2 a cup of milk with low fat cream.
500gms plums, pitted and chopped 1/2 cup of plain flour
1/4 cup of good cocoa powder {I used Valrhona}
A pinch of salt
2/3 cup of vanilla sugar
1 1/4 cups of milk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 eggs, room temperature
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease either one single 10-inch flan/pie dish, heavy cast iron skillet/frying pan, or 6-8 individual flan dishes. Pit and chop the plums. Arrange in the dish cut-side facing upwards. At this stage, an optional extra is to include a handful of chocolate chips in with the cherries. Put the flour, vanilla sugar, cocoa and salt into the processor and whiz for 10-15 seconds to mix. Then add the eggs, milk, vanilla extract and process again till well mixed into a batter, about 30 seconds. Pour the batter carefully over the fruit. Sprinkle a tbsp of castor sugar {a handful for a single large dish} on top and bake in the oven for approx. 20-25 minutes for small ramekins, or an hour for 1 single large dish.
Note: This can also be made with plums, pears, peaches or any stone fruit you like. Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream if you like.
If life gives you lemons, and you are lucky enough to have plums too,
…make plum lemonade!
I bookmarked this the minute I saw it. The summer through, I keep a pitcher of fresh lime juice waiting for the kids when they come back from school, exhausted from the severe heat and looking for cool respite. They absolutely love fresh lime juice and guzzle it down hungrily, greedily sucking at the ice cubes in the end. When the Indian phalsa berry season was on, they enjoyed this phalsa cooler, and once in a while they luxuriated with a tall glass of peach ice tea {from a mix unfortunately}. Home made ginger ale added new dimension, and then the plum lemonade caught my eye!
It had me intrigued as I had never looked at plums as ‘coolers‘. My first plum adventure this season, rather at the end of the season, was the plum granita where a scraped vanilla bean was used {yet to post}. I loved the depth of flavour the vanilla added to it, so I used vanilla sugar in the lemonade instead of regular sugar. YUM refreshing, delicious to the last drop. Also, this time I ran the plums in the liquidizer/blender rather than the food processor as I did earlier! Gosh, so much less elbow grease used, and so much simpler! Live and learn!!
This is a rather quick post o the trot. With work in the kitchen swinging by at it’s own pace, I hardly get time to blog or blog hop. Supervising means hanging around in the heat and dust, and the laptop isn’t happy tto keep me company. Hope to be back to being more regular here, and at my favourite blogs soon!
1 cup vanilla sugar {decrease if your plums are sweet. Mine were super sour}
Ice cubes to serve
Method: Run the ingredients, other than the water, in a blender until smooth. Taste and adjust sugar if required. Pass through a sieve. Add water as required, keeping in mind that ice cubes will dilute the taste further. Garnish with fresh mint and lime slices, and serve over ice cubes.
Note: In the words ofChef is You, “Keep this idea as a base to customize it to your taste and requirements. If you like tart lemon taste more, add more lemon juice. My plums were very sweet hence I added very little sugar.“
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“Give me book, fruit, French wine, and fine weather and a little music out of doors played by someone I do not know”
John Keats
We’ve been stoned nice and proper this summer! No, no, it’s not what you think. It’s just that we’ve had a wonderful bounty of stone fruit, and just when I think it’s the end of the season, the vibrant bazaar and the vendor tempt me back with more fruit to offer! A few days ago, my favourite fruit-vendor promised me another week of peaches. Just when I heaved a sigh of relief that I still had time, and there was really no need for ‘fruit’ panic, he showed the most luscious peaches. I had walked into the trap!
Got back home with a kilo of the most gorgeous peaches, and had them peeled and pitted in next to no time. Had several thoughts of what to do with them. Then my Dad dropped by for lunch, so they were hurriedly chopped up and served with a lightly sweetened cream! Classic and so comforting in every spoonful, ‘Peaches and Cream‘ have to be the most simple yet luxurious dessert to serve in a jiffy!
Predictably, I was back to the shop that afternoon to get another kilo of peaches. I had Tropical Fruit Verrines from Tartlette on my mind, and this years bounty of stone fruit ensured that I could chase this unfulfilled foodie dream! A bag of peaches, a fridge full of mangoes, kiwi fruit and a jar of preserved cherries. {I preserved those in May} were all singing to me. Could see a very happy family in the near future! Toyed with using just hung yogurt in the topping, but then in last minute decision thought that a little low fat cream wouldn’t do too much harm, so in it went. A scraped vanilla bean in the topping tied it all up deliciously!
The verrine originated from France, and is a dessert or appetizer made by layering different ingredients in a single serving glass. It can be either sweet or savoury, and makes an attractive presentation. I’ve never tried making a savoury one, but have heard of layered salads, appetizers etc which are becoming a culinary trend. They are a display of art, and often offer a fascinating blend of colours, textures and complimentary flavours! Another plus is that this one can be made in advance, and the flavours mature beautifully. It is entirely customizable to taste. It’s fun to play around with the layers and ingredients.
Found joy at many levels here. A light make ahead dessert, stone fruit based, seasonal, simple, vegetarian, low fat, healthy, colourfu,l and above all, glass scraping delicious! Try it before the stone fruit season disappears. Cherries have gone from the market here, but you can use burgundy brandied cherries or canned cherries instead, or even use plums! You have to try it, and I promise you won’t miss the heavy cream. The topping is luxurious and creamy.
I enjoyed the explosion of colours the fruit in the verrine offered. Sliced fresh peaches and cherries completed my colour palette … I loved making it and we all enjoyed devouring it!
Tropical Fruit Verrines Recipe adapted minimally fromTartlette Serves 6 2 mangoes, peeled, and pureed with lime juice 2 tbsp lime juice 1 cup drained preserved cherries, or fresh, or canned 2 kiwis, skinned and diced 3 peaches, skinned, stoned and diced 1 mango, peeled and diced 1/2 cup hung yogurt {should be very thick} 150ml low fat cream {25%} 1 vanilla bean scraped 2 tbsp powdered sugar
Method: For the bottom layer, peel the mango and cut in rough chunks, run them through the food processor with the lime juice until you obtain a fine puree. Divide it evenly among glasses or dishes. Mix the diced fruit and cherries to get a nice fruit salad, add a couple of tbsp of lime juice to prevent the fruits from turning brown if you want. Divide on top of the mango puree evenly among the glasses. Mix the hung yogurt, cream, powdered sugar and scraped vanilla bean in a small bowl with a whisk until just well blended & smooth., and divide it between the glasses. Top with fresh sliced fruit. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Even while the hammers rain blows down, and the kitchen is in shambles, I have a list of things to do. A cobbler was on my must bake list before the stone fruit season bid us adieu. It’s been bookmarked ever since I saw it on Leites Culinaria when I stopped by attempting to try and bake a recipe off the site for a photography competition. This cobbler was high on my list, until Monsieur Lebovitz’s Absolute Best Brownies knocked me off my perch!
Not one to stay knocked off for so long, I was soon winging my way back to my must bake list. We’ve had some minor issues while the kitchen renovation goes on … stuff like minor flooding {never touch the plumbing if it works fine!!}, and then a day with minimal work done when the mason took a rainy day off! For me, minimal work being done was a golden opportunity to get down to baking. If the mason doesn’t show up, it’s cobbler time!
Cobbler is a traditional dish in both the United States and the United Kingdom, although the meaning of the term is quite different in each country. In the United States, it is usually a dessert consisting of a fruit filling poured into a large baking dish and covered with a rolled pastry dough, then baked in an oven. In the United Kingdom it is usually a savoury meat dish, typically a lamb casserole, which is covered with a savoury scone-like topping, each scone (or biscuit) forming a separable cobbler. Fruit-based versions are also increasingly popular in the United Kingdom, although they still retain the separate cobbler (or biscuit) topping of the meat version, and savoury or meat versions are not unknown in the United States. The Crisp or Crumble differ from the cobbler in that the cobbler’s top layer is more biscuit-like. Grunts, Pandowdy, and Slumps are a New England variety of cobbler, typically cooked on the stove-top or cooker in an iron skillet or pan with the dough on top in the shape of dumplings; they reportedly take their name from the grunting sound they make while cooking.
Jeanne @ Cooksister had an Apple Pecan Cobbler posted just recently, and I knew the time had come. for me to try the peach cobbler. This was one fruit dessert I hadn’t tried so far. A fridge full of peaches, a few plums too, soon I had a pie dish full of fruit. I chopped the peaches instead of slicing them, all done in haste, but cobbler I made! It’s not a beautiful thing to photograph, but I took a shot. I love the rustic fruity look the cobbled top offered, somewhat like a mosaic, with colourful fruit and juices peeping through. I threw in some pistachio nuts in the biscuit topping, just to add to the taste and, maybe colour!
This particular recipe is from the cookbook The Lee Brothers Simple Fresh Southern by Mat & Ted Lee. Very ‘Simple, Fresh and Southern’ as the book title goes, it is a versatile one too. I added a few plums for colour with the peaches. I think like in most cobblers, apples, blackberries, blueberries etc all work wonderfully under the drop biscuit crust. The fruit juices get cooked and combine with the sugar to form a thick syrup which rises above the biscuit edges to give a cobbled stone like appearance. The cobbler was rustic beautiful and moorish, and full of bursting good flavours.
I’m glad I made the cobbler. It was delicious and ever so fruity. Mr PAB said, ‘What is this ‘thing’ Deeba? It’s delicious!‘ The daughter said, “I love this mushy, ugly thing. Can I have some more?”, and the son loved it too, especially the biscuit crust {anything with butter is!}. I served it chilled because it’s still summer here and we’d rather have cold dessert than warm. Also, chilling it meant that all the fruit juices thickened up nicely and the flavours matured. Of course, it wasn’t very picture-worthy, but heck… My first cobbler was downright delicious, and is off to the Food Photo Competition @ Leite’s Culinaria!
1/2 cup brown sugar {or more, depending on your peaches and your sweet tooth}
Juice of 1 lime
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
For the biscuit dough
3/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 cup fine cornmeal
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup pistachio nuts, shelled
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon iodized salt or fine sea salt
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces, plus more for the baking dish
1/2 cup cold buttermilk {I used low fat}
Method:
Preheat oven to 220C. Butter a 9″ pie dish
Place all filling ingredients in a large bowl, and toss to mix well. Allow to stand for ten minutes while you make the drop-biscuit dough
Drop-biscuit dough
Place the flour, cornmeal, brown sugar, baking powder, pistachio nuts and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse for a few seconds till the nuts are chopped fine, and the mixture blended. Add the butter and give 2-3 short pulses till the butter cuts through, and the mixture becomes like coarse meal with pea size bits of butter. Add the buttermilk and stir with a rubber spatula just until a tacky, wet dough comes together, which should take no more than a few seconds.
Gently plop spoonfuls of the biscuit dough on top of the peach filling or, if the dough is too sticky to plop, simply spread it unevenly. The dough should be patchy and should not cover the entire surface of the filling.
Bake until the cobbler’s syrup is bubbly and the biscuit top is alluringly browned, 20 to 25 minutes.
Scoop the warm cobbler into small dessert bowls, ramekins, even cocktail glasses. Serve warm.
I love the quote above. Words from Jeanne @ CookSister in emails being exchanged a couple of days ago, much of it nonsensical light banter. It coined the way I felt, and I was absolutely taken in by the rhythm of the words! My foodie world has been thrown into disarray and I often feel at odds. It’s a world of rubble, heat and dust, the odd shower thrown in, which adds to humidity. There is SO MUCH on the mind, and the additional want to ‘blog & tweet‘ doesn’t help…
The kitchen is under the hammer, literally, being broken down with hammers and chisels for a much needed face lift. It’s like a scene out of a war zone and fine dust settles like a shroud everywhere, eerily concealing everything underneath. It was a revelation to hear from Ken that a lot of old places in New York still have concrete kitchens like ours! Made me feel better instantly, though getting any work done in India is a whole new ball game. The workers each have a mind of their own, are mostly uneducated but technically superior at what they do, AND enjoy endless chai breaks!
In the midst of the rubble and ‘war like’ home zone, stone fruits still tempt me into buying them when I go intending to pick up basic food supplies to tide over these busy days. Just before work began, a week ago, I had bought a box of cherries and some dark red plums optimistically thinking of making this rice pudding I saw at Tartlette! Unrealistic me; must have been dreaming …
Didn’t get much further than roasting the fruit, and then ran out of time and quickly bundled it off into the fridge. There was a kitchen to be emptied, fridges to be moved etc, and I knew that once cooked, the fruit would keep safe for a bit, and importantly, not torment me. They kept beautifully, and when I saw the Double Cherry Almond Crumble on TasteSpotting, I knew instantly that was where my fruit would go. My love for stone fruit in desserts had found a plan …
It’s a delicious take on the crumble. I loved the topping which incorporated almonds and added loads to the flavour. I couldn’t locate my almond essence in the mess, but am sure it would have added to the ooomph! The crumble was fabulous and a real treat for the family, given that the boy looks longingly at the incomplete work, ruing the fact that dessert days have gone! He was thrilled to see the little ramekins coming their way! I served them with a teeny dollop of unsweetened cream. Nothing like a stone fruit laden crumble…NOTHING!!
Stone Fruit Almond Crumble Adapted minimally fromGood Food, Good Wine, and a Bad Girl Makes 8 individual servings, or 1 large Filling: 2 cups pitted sweet cherries 4-5 dark red plums {stoned and chopped} 1/4 cup brown sugar 1 vanilla bean 4-5 peaches, stoned and chopped 1/4 cup sugar 1 tbsp lemon juice 1 tbsp cornstarch Crumble: 3/4 cup flour 1/2 cup whole almonds 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup butter, chilled 1 tbsp milk
With the tip of a knife, slice the half vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds into a small dish or ramekin. Add the sugar and mix with your fingertips until the vanilla bean seeds are well distributed. Place the cherries and plums in a baking dish and sprinkle the vanilla sugar. Bake for 20 minutes or until juicy. Let cool.
For the Crumble: Preheat oven to 180C. In a mixing bowl, combine the cherries plum compote, peaches, lime juice, sugar and cornstarch. Stir until sugar and cornstarch are dissolved. Set aside. In a food processor, combine flour,almonds and sugar and whiz in brief spells until the almonds are ground. Add the butter and process briefly until loose and crumbly. Add milk and stir until the dough just comes together Pour the fruit mixture into individual ramekins {or an 8×8 baking dish}. Pinch off small pieces of dough, and place on fruit mixture to more-or-less cover the fruit. Bake the crumble in preheated oven for 20-25minutes {40-45 minutes for 1 large serving}, or until filling is bubbly and topping is crisp and golden.
To quote the ‘Bad Girl‘ on the her recipe… Depending on your mood, the crumble can be served warm or at room temperature. If you’re in a particularly indulgent mood, serve warm crumble a-la-mode with a scoop of good-quality vanilla ice cream. It was wonderful with a dollop of unsweetened low fat cream too!
