Warm Fruit Shortcake

I've learned that you can't have Fourth of July without shortcake. Over the years I've made various shortcakes, but this is the one I like the best. It's thin and slightly crisp, which contrasts well with the soft whipped cream and fruit.

Warming the fruit on the barbecue makes it excellent. I warmed a white nectarine and some of our homegrown blueberries with a little butter, sugar and lemon juice in an enameled cast iron skillet on the barbecue. Then I carried the skillet inside (to get away from the noise and smoke).

We cut the thin shortcakes in half, poured some fruit and juice on the bottom layer, slathered on cream (previously whipped with a little icing sugar and vanilla), and topped with the other shortcake half.

We enjoyed the warm fruit, crisp biscuits and luscious whipped cream while watching the never-ending fireworks show through our windows.

Shortcakes
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 stick butter
scant 1/2 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup turbinado (or raw) sugar

Preheat oven to 425°F.

In the food processor, pulse flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add diced butter and pulse to a coarse meal. Add whipping cream and process until dough holds together when you squeeze it with your hand.

Tip the dough onto a floured board. Press it together and roll into a 1/2 inch rectangle. It will be crumbly. Cut in four pieces. Carefully transfer to a cookie sheet. Brush the tops with a little whipping cream and sprinkle with a little sugar.

Bake 15 minutes until golden brown. Cool on rack.

Serves 4

Peach Ice Cream with Berries

Our blackberries and blueberries are just starting to ripen. I wanted to serve the first of the crop as dessert with our Memorial Day barbecue, but I knew it would just be a small bowlful of berries between us. A scoop of homemade peach ice cream under the berries sounded like just the ticket.

I don't like commercial peach ice cream — ersatz fruit flavor weirds me out. But the peach ice cream I make tastes of peaches and cream.

Plus, it's really simple to make. Purée peaches with a little sugar. Make a custard with eggs, milk and cream. Combine and freeze in the ice cream maker.

Yes, it's that simple to make ice cream that is better than anything you will find in the store.

And if you have fresh blackberries and blueberries to sprinkle over it, well, then you have something spectacular.

I still use the hand-cranked 1-pint ice cream
maker my mother gave me years ago.

Peach Ice Cream
1 cup milk
1 cup whipping cream
2 egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar, divided use
1 lb peaches (3-4)
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp almond extract

Heat milk and cream in a heavy saucepan until steaming and small bubbles are forming around edges. In a medium bowl, combine egg yolks, 1/3 cup sugar and a dash of salt. Beat with handheld electric beaters until light and lemon-colored.

Very gradually, pour hot milk into eggs, in a gentle stream, beating constantly. This will temper the eggs without cooking them too quickly. Keep the beaters moving.

Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 5 minutes until the custard begins to thicken. Set aside to cool.

Halve the peaches and remove the pits. Put the flesh (with skin) into a food processor and finely chop. Add sugar and lemon juice and purée again.

Stir the peaches and almond extract into the cooled custard. Pour into ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's directions.

Makes 2 pints.

Fresh homegrown blackberries. Yum.

Barbecued Pineapple

Our local independent grocery store had organic pineapples from Hawaii just before Memorial Day. I snagged one to grill for dessert.

I also picked up some organic vanilla ice cream (Three Twins from Petaluma) to go with it.

I'd never barbecued pineapple before, but it turned out great. The grilling made it warm and extra sweet, like a decadent dessert.

Leftovers made it into the next morning's breakfast fruit. They were sweeter than the ungrilled pieces - cooking is an interesting thing.

Here's what I did:

I cut the top and bottom off the pineapple, then cut down the sides to remove the peel and the outer layer of flesh which has the prickles embedded in it. I quartered the pineapple lengthwise and cut out the tough center core. Then I cut the quarters lengthwise into 1/2 inch wedges.

Dessert in the dark

After Larry had cooked the main course and cleaned the grill, I laid the pineapple over some ashy coals. I flipped them after 3-4 minutes, when there were nice grill marks.

And that was it - warm, sweet pineapple served with cold creamy ice cream. A delicious way to end a holiday feast.

Thanksgiving Dinner Menu

This was our Thanksgiving day menu:

Halftime appetizer:
Pumpkin empanadas with cilantro-mint dipping sauce

Dinner:
Honey-baked ham (for Larry and Trace)
Homemade bread with honey butter
Green bean and mushroom casserole
Baked kabocha squash
Spicy brown rice with mushrooms and chipotles
Kohlrabi greens and roots with garlic
Beets with mint
Salad with persimmons and pomegranate seeds

Dessert:
Lemon pudding cake with cranberry syrup

Frozen Bananas

I like to buy organic bananas even though they don't grow locally. I feel good about supporting chemical-free agriculture in tropical countries.

I don't buy non-organic bananas because I choose not to support agriculture that poisons the workers. Conventional bananas are grown with pesticides categorized by the World Health Organization in the first and second most dangerous categories. Typical banana plantations in Central America apply 30 kilograms of pesticides per hectare each year. That is 10 times more than the amount used in intensive agriculture in developed nations.

Fortunately, organic bananas are becoming easier to find at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. Even my local grocery store carries them pretty regularly.

Since they tend to go brown faster than we can eat them, I throw the extras in a zip-loc bag in the freezer and get ready to enjoy my favorite frozen treat.

On hot days like today, I pull a banana from the freezer, peel it, slice it, and enjoy a treat that is better than ice cream. And healthier too.

Bananas are a good source of fructooligosaccharide, a compound that nourishes probiotic (good) bacteria in the colon. These beneficial bacteria produce enzymes that increase digestive ability and protect against unhealthy bacterial infections. Similar to eating yogurt or taking probiotic pills.

Frozen bananas might also make you happy. They're a good source of tryptophan, an amino acid converted by your body into the mood-booster serotonin.

Frozen Banana
1 ripe banana

Put the banana with peel in a bag in the freezer. Let it freeze at least a few hours until it is solid, but you can leave it there for up to 6 months.

Take the banana from the freezer just before you want to eat it. Let it sit at room temperature for about 5 minutes until the peel has defrosted enough for you to remove it.

Peel then slice the banana. Eat while it's still hard. If it defrosts too much it gets mushy - great for banana bread, but not so good for dessert.

Serves 1.

Blackberry Crumble

As July starts, our blackberry season comes to an end.

We have had a wonderful harvest this year - more than we could eat in our morning fruit. So I made a crumble, combining the blackberries (which might be olallieberries) with our own blueberries.

Crumbles are far easier to make than pies. A crumbly topping is spread over fresh berries and then baked. It's good with whipped cream or ice cream, or even plain for breakfast.

This crumble has a thick top crust, which I like against the juiciness of the berries. If you prefer more fruit than crust, use less of the topping.

This would be fine made with frozen berries. Defrost them first and pour off some of the juice from the blackberries. Or use mixed berries. With crumbles the possibilities are endless.

We ate our home-grown berry crumble warm with Julie's organic vanilla ice cream on the side. A true summer treat.

Berry Crumble
1 1/4 lbs berries
4 oz butter, softened
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Put the berries in a 6-cup casserole. Sprinkle with a little sugar.

Cut the flour into the butter until it resembles crumbs. Stir in the oats, sugar and spices.

Spread the flour mixture over the berries.

Bake until golden brown on top, and some of the juices are bubbling through, about 30 minutes.

Let cool a little before eating - the fruit will be very hot.

Serves 6. Leftovers are great for breakfast.

Blackberries

Gloomy June mornings find me dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, edging into our fruit cage to pick blackberries. There is nothing like fresh berries on our morning fruit.

These berry bushes were given to me by a friend who calls them black raspberries. I don't know if they're olallieberries or boysenberries or blackberries -- but I do know they are delicious. And prickly.

They fruit on second-year canes (as do all blackberries), so while I'm picking berries off the canes tied up to the trellis, new canes are surging around my feet (hence the jeans). When this year's berries are finished, I will cut back the canes that fruited and tie the new canes up to the trellis.

It's a labor of love and prickles, made even more challenging by the netting we have to set up so the mockingbirds, orioles, bulbuls and squirrels don't get my precious berries. (They feast on the loquats hanging overhead instead.)

I first remember picking blackberries at the bottom of our garden in a London suburb (this was before we moved to Canada when I was five). The key was to tug gently on a berry - if it didn't come away it wasn't ripe yet. We fingered and tugged and ate, juice staining our fingers. I'm not sure if any berries ever made it to the kitchen.

When I visited my brother in Vancouver years ago, he fed me a crumble made from wild blackberries he picked along the local railway tracks. Denis Cotter writes of picking blackberries on rambles through the Cork countryside, although he bemoans the excess development that is taking away the country lanes.

This is the first year our bushes have produced an abundance of berries, enough that I can consider baking with them. I sat this morning browsing my English cookbooks with a bowl of blackberries by my side -- crumbles, pies, tarts -- and then I noticed there were no berries left in the bowl. They are so delicious raw, why bother baking with them at all?

So I made vanilla ice cream and sprinkled some berries over the top. I'm considering making a blackberry ripple ice cream - pressing some berries through a sieve and layering them with the ice cream in a pan. But I'm not sure the berries will make it into the sieve.

This is the recipe I use for vanilla ice cream. It came with the Donvier hand-cranked ice cream maker my mother gave me years ago. My Snoopy ice cream maker only holds a pint, which is more than enough for two people. You can double the recipe if your ice cream maker holds a quart.

Remember that dairy products should be organic to minimize exposure to hormones. I use organic vanilla essence from Watkins.

Ice cream is a wonderful summer treat, not a daily indulgence. So when you're going to eat it, make sure it is the best. And make it into almost health food by sprinkling fresh berries on top.

Vanilla Ice Cream
1 egg
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla

Beat eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until thick and cream-colored. Stir in milk, cream and vanilla until well-mixed. Pour into ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Makes 1 pint