A Season of Abundance

These are delicious days.  Every farm stand is a bounty of inspiration.  At the farmer's market on Saturday we picked up salad greens, basil, corn, eggplant, watermelon, plums, nectarines, grape tomatoes, and blackberries.  Remarkably, this was not enough for me.  I had visions of peach jam in my head, so I went hunting for some sort-out peaches.  My hunt led me not to peaches, but to apricots!  So I grabbed up a flat, along with some cherry cider, and headed home to experiment.    I cooked up two batches of jam- one with a little brandy, and one with some Frangelico for a little nuttiness.  I added champagne vinegar to both batches in lieu of lemons for a little acidity since the ripe fruit was so very sweet.  Even after two batches, I still had some apricots left, so now I'm attempting my first fruit leather.  I pureed the apricots, spread it out on a silpat-lined sheet tray, and am letting it dry slowly in the lowest possible oven.  Ideally, the oven should be at 135 degrees.   

We dug into the watermelon and slurped our way through nearly a quarter of it, then set about pickling the rind.  This may sound odd, but it is oh so good with pork!  For dinner we splurged and ate up almost all the veggies grilled and tossed with pasta, along with some onion, olives and basil.  

I'm debating whether I should confess what we had for dessert.  The cherry cider had a sweet-tart candy quality to it, and something about the flavor brought to mind lemonade pie.  So, thus inspired, I reduced the cider from a quart to a cup and made a cherry cider pie, with blackberries on top!  

With so much wonderful fresh produce, it's not too difficult to come up with ideas.  Simple preparations show off how flavorful each ingredient is.  The two things I keep thinking about are how to use large quantities before they pass their peak, and how to preserve the bounty for leaner times.  Summer spoils us with its abundance.  If we don't store up for winter, it will be full of trips to a grocery store that can only offer produce that has travelled from a part of the world enjoying a very different season.  With this in mind, I revel in every juicy piece of locally grown fruit, and slowly build up my store of preserves.