Fruit Cobbler Without The Fat

Photo: Flavor Walk

Fruit cobblers are scrumptious and scream summer is near! But, usually, these tasty cobblers are made with a stick of butter. Nowadays, I try to eat healthy about 90% of the time, so I make a cobbler recipe that only requires buttering the baking pan. You can use any fruit, such as a peeled and diced apple, or peach, or my favorite, blueberries. A combination of blueberries, seedless raspberries, and blackberries will also do. My recipe yields one or two servings, so you don't have to wait for visitors to make it. Without the usual butter in a cobbler, it's not too decadent to devour all of it by yourself. You are still eating dessert (i.e., sugar), though, so you may not want to bake the cobbler every day. But gee whiz, sometimes we just crave a little treat:😋

Fruit Cobbler Without the Fat

Ingredients: 

Fruit Filling --

1/2 cup of berries (or 1 peach or 1 apple)

1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon all-purpose unbleached flour

a sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg

a squirt of lemon

Cobbler Streusel Topping --

2 tablespoons unbleached flour

1 tablespoon of finely crushed walnuts.

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 - 3 tablespoons of buttermilk (or milk if it's all you have)

If you like cinnamon, you can sprinkle some in the topping.

Optional: 1 tablespoon of Quaker oats if you feel like tossing it in.

Directions:

1) In a mixing bowl, use a fork to combine all the ingredients for the fruit filling.

2) In a 2nd mixing bowl, whisk together the streusel topping ingredients.

3) Butter a baking pan or dish (an 8-inch, 9-inch, or 10-inch square baking pan, a pie pan, or a loaf pan all work). Pour in the fruit filling.

3) Spread the streusel topping evenly over the fruit filling.

4) Bake in a preheated 350°F oven for 20 - 25 minutes. Watch for the cobbler to bubble and the topping starting to turn brown. After removing it from the oven, let it cool for about 10 minutes before eating.

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6 Canned Produce I Like

Most of us would agree there's no comparison of taste between farm fresh fruits and vegetables and canned or even frozen produce. Living in a city, I buy plenty of frozen vegetables because food experts tell us they are frozen soon after picking and retain their nutrients. It's a compromise I make since frozen is more convenient though less scrumptious than farm fresh.

But guess what? There are canned foods I don't mind or like better than their fresh, or refrigerated, or frozen versions. I'll list 6 of them below.

6 Canned Produce I Like:

1) Sauerkraut - Canned sauerkraut isn't as raw as it is bagged and refrigerated at the supermarket. Still sufficiently sour yet not as intensely sour or crunchy as unblanched bagged sauerkraut.

2) Refried beans - I see little difference in taste or texture between canned beans and dried beans you soak and tenderize yourself. With refried beans, I like the convenience, and unless you cooked a huge amount, the extra cost of buying them canned is minor. For soups or sometimes chili, I will use either canned or dried beans depending on how much I'm making.

3) Pumpkin, puree - Who in their right mind would unseed, clean, cook, and scrape the flesh out of a fresh pumpkin to use in a dish? Oh, the many steps and mess!😳

4) Tomatoes, whole plum, diced, or crushed for cooking - Cheap and you have the same consistency every time when making sauces.

5) Pineapple, diced - Since pineapples don't grow outside of Hawaii or South America, it is doubtful I have ever eaten a fresh one, so I opt for the convenience of canned pineapple. I don't detect enough of a difference after cleaning and cutting up a whole pineapple that may (or may not) be fresh after it arrives at the supermarket.

6) Spinach - This one is debatable. I do prefer fresh spinach and buy it to use as a dip, pizza topping, part of a salad, or to add to soup, but since a 10-ounce bag of fresh spinach cooks down to nothing in seconds, I also buy canned spinach to eat as a side dish. The taste and texture of canned spinach is fine, plus there seems to be more of it in a can than in a bag. In Manhattan you can't buy a bushel of fresh spinach, or grow it sans a plot of soil, so it's another compromise I make.

So there you are, my list of 6 foods I buy and like canned. Often our sense of taste is subjective. Is there any produce you would add or subtract from my list as unedible? Let's discuss... it's all in fun.🌴

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America's Test Kitchen's Upside-Down Plum Tomato Tart

All photos courtesy of Test Kitchen -The lovely hands of Test Kitchen Cook Elle Simone 

America's Test Kitchen has perfected yet another delicious recipe and since they publish it for free, I feel I can share it with my readers, and I also link it back to the episode. My role is to give you (myself included!) a cheat sheet, namely, the written ingredients and directions, and a place to return to make it whenever you like. This savory tomato tart recipe mimics the same method used to make apple tarts, and it turns out that once upon a time tomatoes were called love apples.🍎🍏🍅 Watch the episode and see the recipe below:

Upside Down Tomato Tart

Ingredients:

2 lbs plum tomatoes, cut in half with seeds and juice removed

1/3 cup sherry vinegar

 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 medium shallot, finely diced

1 tablespoon butter

2 teaspoons thyme, minced

Extra 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper

1 store-bought puff pastry or make the tart dough yourself from this recipe.

Directions:

1) Into a 10-inch skillet pour the sherry vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook for about 2 minutes, swirling the pan to dissolve the sugar. 

2) Once the liquid is reduced to resemble caramelized syrup, add the shallot, butter, and thyme.

3) Next turn the heat off and add the prepared tomatoes. Distribute them evenly in the pan and coat the tamhatoes with the caramelized vinegar mixture. Finish off with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. 🍽

4) Bake in the oven at 400 degrees F for 1 hour.

5) Take your tart pastry dough out and on a floured surface roll it out 10 inches. Use a 10" plate as a measure to cut a 10" circle of dough. Chill the dough in the refrigerator while the tomatoes are baking in the oven.

6) After 1 hour, remove the roasted tomatoes and cover the skillet evenly with the chilled tart dough. Press the dough in at the edges of the skillet.

7) Return to the oven and bake for 15 minutes, then turn the skillet around to bake for another 15 minutes. After 30 minutes, the dough should turn golden brown.

8) Remove from the oven, and wait about 8 minutes before topping with an inverted 10-inch plate over the tart sitting inside the skillet. Quickly flip the plate and skillet over so the tomato side of the tart is face up.

9) Wait another 10 minutes for the tart to cool ... the toughest part of all as you smell the tomato tart aroma!

Sprinkle with more dried thyme. Cut into slices, serve and enjoy! 

We gratefully thank Test Kitchen Cook Elle Simone for perfecting this luscious and savory tomato tart recipe, always the best of the best, since as stated in the show's name, it's tested (and perfected!) for all of us to make at home!

This piece has my name on it. Where are my bite marks?

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Plum Crazy Desserts Part 2

Photo: the Spruce

Have you been following? I'm down to 2 1/2 pounds of dried plums and still figuring out ways to eat them. In fact, they are quite moist as is, yet tasteless if popped into your mouth ... lacking the sugar and heat of say, dried ginger. So if you want flavor, you have to turn them into desserts. Following are 2 plum desserts that look especially appealing to me. Eash sweet can be baked in a square baking pan, then cut into squares if you wish.

The 1st dessert is less work than traditional English plum pudding, its cousin across the pond (which surprisingly contains no plums). This one does --

Plum Pudding With Caramelized Sauce

Tweaked from Idaho's Prepared Pantry

Ingredients:

2 cups dried plums, chopped

1/2 cup of boiling hot water

1 stick soft butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

pinch of salt

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup walnuts (or pecans), chopped

Start with 1/2 cup of milk -- up to 1 cup (Step 6 explains.)

Directions:

1) In a separate bowl, let the diced plums soak in boiling hot water for 1 hour. (My dried plums were very moist out of the bag so I didn't have to soak to rehydrate them.)

2) In a mixing bowl using an electric mixer, beat together the butter, sugars, and eggs.

3) Sprinkle in the flour, baking powder, and salt.

4) Add the flavors, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

5) Toss in the plums with water and walnuts. 

6) Starting with 1/2 cup milk, add to get a not too thick or too thin batter consistency. I used nearly 1 cup of milk. Stop before you arrive at runny.

7) Pour into a well-buttered square baking pan.

8) Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 35 - 45 minutes or until done in the center. While baking you can make the sauce.

Caramelized Brown Sugar Sauce

Ingredients:

1 stick of softened butter

1 3/4 cups brown sugar

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 cup milk

1 tablespoon good Kentucky bourbon

Directions:

1) Melt the butter in a saucepan.

2) Stir in the sugar and continue whisking.

3) Dissolve the cornstarch into the milk and add it to the mixture continuing to whisk while the sauce simmers and thickens. 

4) Finish off near the end by flavoring with the bourbon.

After cooling down a bit, pour the Caramelized Brown Sugar Sauce over the Plum Pudding. 

Note: I'll omit the sauce the next time I make this dessert. Everyone agreed the cake is moist and tasty without it. We put sauce on the side, and nobody ate it after a bite. We liked the sauce but it didn't improve the cake or pudding as it is called.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The 2nd dessert is a crumble ... crisp, crumble, cobbler, to know the difference go here.

Plum Berry Crumble

Ingredients:

Filling Ingredients --

💟 2 cups plums, soaked in 1 cup of boiled hot water for 1 hour. 

💟 Then pour the plumped-up plums with the water and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice into a blender (or food processor) to puree.

💟 1 1/2 cups blueberries (or a mixture of berries) - leave whole

Batter Ingredients --

1 stick softened butter (Eyeball the consistency. It should be crumbly. You can add a 2nd stick of butter if needed. I try to cut back on the fat and sugar when possible without ruining the dessert.)

2 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 cardamon

3 cups Quaker Oats (1 minute, or old fashioned works)

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

A pinch of salt

Directions:

1) In a mixing bowl cream together the butter and sugar.

2) Add the eggs and vanilla and mix together.

3) Toss in the oats, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom, and salt.

4) Divide the batter in half. 

5) Press half of the batter in the bottom of a well-buttered square baking pan.

6) Spread the filling of plum puree and toss some whole blueberries (or other berries) on top of the bottom batter.

7) Spoon the remaining batter on top of the filling.

8) Bake in a 350 degree F oven for 25 - 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Much maligned, who knew dried plums and prunes (which are Italian plums) make such tasty desserts? And, the healthy dried plums have a convenient no-rush self-life! We can always have a bag of dried fruit waiting in the pantry.💜

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Dried Plum Pudding/Fruit Spread

With 3 pounds of dried plums (don't ask😁) I'm looking at plum recipes. One for prune pudding from Southern Living looks promising. It's more of a topping or fruit spread than a pudding, and I used dried plums, not dried prunes ... but close enough! Prunes are dried Italian plums ... not as juicy or round as regular plums. You see both at the grocery store. Below is the tweaked recipe.

Dried Plum Fruit Spread (or pudding if you will:)

Ingredients:

1 cup dried plums, tightly packed

2/3 cup sugar (I used 1/3 cup of this Stevia mixture.)

1 star anise

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

3 tablespoon cornstarch

Juice of 1 lemon (I cheated with 2 tablespoons of bottled lemon juice.)

Directions:

1) Soak the cup of dried plums in a saucepan with 2 cups of boiled hot water for 1 hour. They plump up.

2) Next turn on the heat, bring to a boil and simmer for 8 minutes.

3) Let cool down and transfer to a food processor or blender, add another cup of boiled hot water and pulse a few times to break the plums down, leaving some chunks. Return to the saucepan.

4) Remove 1/3 of the mixture and put it into a separate bowl to make a cornstarch slurry. This step is to avoid cornstarch lumps in the sauce.

5) To 1/3 of the plum mixture, add the juice of one lemon and stir it together. Next add 3 tablespoons of cornstarch and mix until smooth. Set aside.

6) To the main pot of plum mixture in the saucepan add 2/3 cup sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, and star anise. Stir to combine. Turn the heat back on and simmer for 5 minutes.

7) While it's simmering, pour the cornstarch slurry into the main plum mixture in the pot and continue stirring. After it thickens, remove the star anise and let the pudding/fruit spread cool. 

Store in a canning jar and use it on toast or whatever else you like. The plums will give you fiber, vitamin C, and heart-healthy phytochemicals to lower inflammation.

Although not an English cake (which the Brits call pudding), plum pudding/fruit spread seems very European with subtle flavors! Stay tuned for other plum recipes as my kitchen becomes plum city for a while.💜

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Eating A Plantain

From time to time, I bet every home cook gets tired of his/her own cooking. That's when I'm open to trying a new food or dish. New York is such a mish-mash of cultures I really love it! This week I received two plantains, a staple in African, Asian, and Latin American cuisine. 

To tell you how unfamiliar I am with this fruit, during my 1st year in Manhattan I bought one by mistake, thinking it was a large, oddly shaped banana. It took longer to ripen, was harder to peel, and tasted raw ... after I waited a long time for it to soften, then bit into it. Because. It was raw, and I didn't know I was supposed to cook it!😂

So flash forward to our present day. Lucky me, I got not one, but 2 plantains. One was yellow, the other green. 

So this time around, I knew the plantains had to be cooked, but I still didn't know how best to do it. Well ... that's what Google is for ... to tell me how!

Photo: AllRecipes

The yellow one I sliced and grilled both sides in a 12" skillet brushed with extra virgin olive oil on a stovetop. I could have sprinkled it with sugar and cinnamon; instead, I kept it plain and ate it with leftover cauliflower, lima beans, and carrots. Not bad in lieu of potatoes or rice. Good in taste and texture. Yep, I'll eat it again.

Now I must figure out how to eat the 2nd green plantain. If sliced thin with a mandoline, I could bake it into plantain chips seasoned with salt, dried garlic, and red pepper flakes. Or if I wait too long and it begins to soften, as I understand it, plantains can be mashed like potatoes, or not dilly-dally and use it green to thicken soups or stews. It's a brand new plantain world in the Turner household! The spicy plantain crispy baked chips are tempting!

Photo: BigOven

As it turns out, plantains are a complex, starch-resistant carbohydrate that keeps your glucose index (blood sugar) in a healthy range.

They are rich in iron, vitamin C, potassium, vitamin A, and the B vitamins, as well as, fiber. Plantains naturally contain beneficial plant compounds, such as polyphenols and flavonoids (which act as antioxidants) to help fight free radicals that otherwise damage the body. Eating plantains also lowers blood pressure, reduces constipation, and prevents iron deficiency anemia. The green plantains are low in sugar. As they ripen and turn yellow, plantains get softer and sweeter but stay mild in flavor. You can use ripe plantains like bananas in baking but they don't taste like bananas although they are in the same genus Musa family. 

The word "plantain" indicates the fruit is a cooking banana. In other words, the name, "plantain," itself means fruit that must be cooked. Oh, right, NOW you tell me! Not when I needed to know as a young, innocent transplant to New York City. Thanks, universe.🙂

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The Santa Rosa: A Plum-Basil Cocktail

Photo: Jim P.

Summer's long days and mild temperatures make it an excellent season for reading, relaxing and sipping an evening cocktail.  Today I'm featuring an icy, fruity drink, created by Jim P., who has more ripe plums than he knows what to do with.  Having an abundance of fruit is a very good thing.  It's the mother of invention.

Here is the rough and easy recipe to make one serving of Jim's refreshing, plum-basil cocktail:

1 big, or 2 small very ripe plums

1 good-sized sprig of basil in a cocktail shaker

Add 2 oz bourbon

.5 ounces sweet vermouth

A dash of bitters (Jim uses Fee's barrel-aged.)

Shake and strain over crushed ice.

Top off with seltzer.

Be sure to find yourself some comfortable seating, where you will feel a summer breeze, relax and enjoy.

Cheers!

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