Oh, the plums are so plentiful right now.� We only have a few more months to enjoy them so I’m hoping I can find some great ways to use up some fresh plums.

I’m not much for making jellies and jams, although I have been known to make some pretty good ones.� Plum jam is sort of a luxury, meaning we don’t usually buy it in the grocery store.� Lately, if we have any in the house it’s because some benefactor was feeling generous to us.� It’s delicious, but I’m thinking I want ideas that are somewhat more suitable for a main dish.

Plums are loaded with vitamin C which makes it a great fruit to add to your family’s diet as vitamin C has been proven to increase the absorption of iron into the body.� So, besides the antioxidant values of vitamin C, you get an iron boost.� I like plums because they’re sweet and juicy, but I guess the nutrition value is important as well!

When I did a little research into some of my old recipes and cookbooks, certain recipes keep coming up, or a variation of those recipes.� There are many mouth-watering pictures of roasted pork with different plum and apple combination glazes.� I even found one beef stew that had plums in it!

A dessert recipe that I particularly like is a simple one that I remember from long ago.� We took plums and chopped them up, put them in a pan with just enough apple cider to just cover them, and brought them to a slow simmer.� Once the flavors were all cooked together, we grated a tart apple in there and added a little ground cinnamon.� Then we let that simmer together for a while until it got thicker. The sauce was served hot over vanilla ice cream.� Yummy!

Does anyone have a particularly unusual or delicious dish that they’ve made with plums?� I would love to see what you come up with.

This may seem like a pretty simple question, since there are so many ways to eat raisins, but I’d like a few new ideas.  Since I get tired of baking sweets with them, and putting them in cereal, and just snacking on them, I guess it’s time I learned a few good recipes to use them up in a main dish or salad.

One way I have used raisins in something other than sweets is one of those fabulous potluck salads you all have probably partaken in at some point in your life.  It’s the combination “Broccoli-Raisins-Bacon- Salad.”  Let me see if I can find my recipe.  That would be a good start.

Okay, here we are with one of my concoctions:

Crunchy Broccoli and Raisin Salad

• 4 cups chopped fresh broccoli (see * below)
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup onion (depending on how strong it is)
• 1/2 cup sliced water chestnuts
• 8 to 10 slices of bacon, diced then browned until crisp
• 1 cup sunflower seeds (salted)
• 1 cup raisins

• 1 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar
• 4 Tbsp cider vinegar

Put the first ingredients in a big bowl and toss together well.  (* I normally put my broccoli in the microwave for just a few seconds, then let cool in the refrigerator.  Blanching them quickly like that brings out the flavor, but be sure you don’t let them get soft!)

In a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, sugar, and vinegar until well blended.  Pour the dressing over the salad, mix together until everything is coated, then cover lightly and put in the refrigerator until all the flavors come together, at least a couple hours.

That’s my simple salad to use up a whole cup of raisins.  Another thought which comes from a fond memory of a restaurant meal from some years ago, is for a raisin sauce to serve over salmon.  That was very good, but I’ve never attempted to make it.

Do you have any favorite recipes in which you use up some raisins?  Even recipes like the raisin sauce which actually features raisins as the main ingredient would be nice.  I’d sure like to hear from you!

If you’ve ever had a sick child at home, you know how you try to jump through hoops to make them feel better, or at least be happy.  Pudding always does the trick in my house, so we have a little stash of vanilla pudding mix just in case somebody gets a bit sick.  Some kids like orange Kool-Aid, some kids like vanilla pudding… I like to keep a bit of both on hand.

Digging through my pantry, I came across a couple boxes of instant vanilla pudding mix that I don’t remember buying.  I thought it would be a good idea to use it up before I go and buy a couple new boxes.  Rather than just make it and eat it, mostly because that just reminds me of sad little ones, I thought I’d use it in something yummy.

Fruit salad is a favorite of ours in the summertime.  We don’t just save it for special occasions. We  believe that anytime you can have a big bowl of fruit salad it is already a special occasion!  I found a simple recipe for a fruit salad dressing and thought I’d give it a try.  I’ll share it with you here.

Sweet Whipped Fruit Salad Dressing

• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 package instant vanilla pudding mix
• 1 pint whipping cream, whipped

Mix together the milk and pudding following the directions on the package.  In super cold metal bowl, beat the whipping cream until stiff peaks form.  Fold the whipped cream into the pudding mix.  Toss assorted fruit with dressing and serve immediately.  Chill any leftovers.

That dressing is just about as simple and sweet as you can get.  I can’t think of a much better use for vanilla pudding mix.  If you can think of something else to use vanilla pudding mix in, I’d really appreciate hearing from you!

My husband made a great crockpot sweet potato dish a few weeks ago which called for about 1/4 cup of shredded coconut.  So, guess what we still have in our refrigerator?  You guessed it.  What’s left of a big bag of shredded coconut.  I’ve been eating it right out of the bag and really need to stop.  It’s not that shredded coconut is so terribly high in calories, but it seems awfully wasteful.  I know there are a lot of fruit salad recipes and such that use coconut, but I’d like to try something a little less sweet or dessert-like.

We do have an all-time favorite shrimp dish that uses coconut.  It’s basically any deep fry coating mix with coconut added to the milk and egg, then either deep fried or oven-fried; the shrimp come out delicious either way.

A simple breakfast meal that we’ve incorporated some coconut into is waffles or pancakes.  That’s always a hit in our house.  We just sprinkle in a bit of coconut in the batter and cook as usual.  A nice touch, too, is to use a fruity syrup instead of maple syrup.  The coconut really goes well with peach syrup.  You can make a simple syrup just by boiling the juice that comes out of the can of peaches with a little extra sugar or honey.  Then, chop up the peaches and throw them in the pan.  When you serve the waffles topped with the peach syrup, sprinkle a little coconut on top.  It’s really a special treat that way.

As far as using up a lot of shredded coconut, I’m stumped.  I simply can’t picture using layers of coconut in a main dish of any kind.  But, I know there has to be some recipe out there that is tried-and-true.  I’d love to hear from you!

It’s peach season here!  We actually have a farm that we can go to pick our own fresh peaches right from the tree.  This is incredible for us, since we didn’t always have that luxury.

The last time I actually had a lot of fresh peaches was years ago when someone shipped me a box as a gift.  That was some special surprise!  Not only were they a tasty treat, but the aroma when we opened that box was out-of-this-world.  After eating a couple right out of the box, we got to work trying to figure out what to do with them.  We didn’t want the pleasure of those peaches to be over too quickly, so we found a couple really great ways to freeze some of them.  Both these methods are so simple that it almost seems wrong.

Here’s how we did one batch.  Wash the peaches well, cut in half, removing the pit, then slice into wedges.  Lay the wedges in a single layer on a cookie sheet and put it in the freezer until the peaches are frozen solid.  Remove the frozen peach slices from cookie sheet and slip the slices into freezer bag and place bag in freezer immediately.  Because they’re frozen individually you can use whatever amount you want out of the freezer bag, even taking out just one or two wedges to put on top of a bowl of ice cream. They’ll thaw in a minute or two and be ready for you.

One other great way that we froze some of our peaches was in glass canning jars.  We just slipped some of the clean wedges into wide-mouth jars, screwed on the lids, and set them in the freezer.  The canning jars ensured that they would not become freezer-burned if we left them in there longer than anticipated.  It was a real treat to find a jar of those frozen peaches hiding in the freezer a year after we received that box of fresh peaches.  We thawed them out and they were as good as the first day.

Now, we did not add sugar to our peaches so that they would be “recipe ready” for pies and cobblers.  If you’re thawing a couple wedges just for a treat, you can sprinkle the peaches with sugar once they thaw.

Anyone have a good peach pie, cobbler, or crisp recipe to share?  Are there other uses for peaches besides dessert?  I’d love to hear from you!

Tis’ the Season… the grocery stores are starting to get their fresh cranberries in and do they look yummy!  I have a few favorites that we always make during the Holidays, but I’m sure there are lots of other uses for those beautiful cranberries. 

I actually lived for some time close to cranberry bogs, so had access to the freshest cranberries around.  As kids, we would even eat them uncooked right out of the bag. That’s a taste explosion worth trying, once.  We tried drying them, but never was successful with that project.  We probably needed some sort of fruit drying machine in order for it to work, but we were kids so we just left them out in the sun on a pan. Not the preferred method, to be sure. 

Aside from the classic cooked version of cranberries, where you just boil them down in water and sugar and serve, are there some recipes that would really be a surprise?  We also make a Cranberry Relish by putting fresh cranberries in the food processor, throwing in a whole cut up orange, and a little bit of lemon, and a touch of sugar, and just grind them all up together.  It’s pretty simple, but seems to be one of our family favorites, so we haven’t messed with that formula at all.

I’m looking for a recipe that’s a bit unusual that you have made with fresh cranberries.  Something that your family asks for year after year and has become a classic dish on your table.  Any ideas?

Since I’ve been on a low-glycemic diet, I’ve had to be very selective about my choices when I buy fruit.  Pears are low on the glycemic index, so they are my new best friend.  Besides being a good choice for weight loss, the nutritional value and fiber is remarkable.  And, as you know, I would never just buy one pear at a time.  They’re at peak season now and looked so good, you know I had to buy a bushel.  So, aside from just eating a pear, what can I make with them?

One of the ways I know how to serve pears is in salads.  Pears are particularly good in a salad made with mixed greens, a few green onions chopped up, a nice vinaigrette dressing, and topped with chopped walnuts. That’s a “company’s coming” salad!  As a kid, we used to have pears encased in Jello, which was always fun. 

Are there any tried-and-true recipes out there that would help me work my way through a bushel of pears?  Has anyone tried to freeze them, and if so, how.  I’m not an expert on canning, but would give it a try if there was a method that didn’t involve too much science.  Let me hear from all you fellow pear fanatics, won’t you?

I went grocery shopping today and found a great buy one get two free deal on watermelons. I couldn’t resist and now have 3 large watermelons sitting on my kitchen counter. We started to eat the first one, and got through about half of it. Now I’m wondering what I’m supposed to do with the rest. Since they hold so much water, I’m sure freezing and then thawing them later on is out of the question. What else could I make with these yummy fruits? Does anyone have a recipe for a watermelon drink? (I think I’ve heard of a water melon cooler or lemonade before). I appreciate any tips or recipes you may have that use watermelon.

Susanne

My father-in-law has a few huge blueberry bushes in the backyard, and guess what… It’s blueberry season. His grandkids (including our daughter) love to go down there and eat blueberries until they are about to get sick, but it’s still not even starting to make a dent in this year’s harvest.

We spent last weekend picking quite a few gallon buckets of them and have freezing the berries. We should have more than enough blueberries to last us all year.

I like to sprinkle it on cereal in the morning or make a breakfast smoothie by combining frozen blueberries, half a banana, some low-fat yogurt and a splash of milk or orange juice. Yummy…

How about you? Do you have any good blueberry recipes?

My neighbor’s cherry tree is out of of control and she just handed me a huge bag of these yummy fruits. There is no way we can eat them all as is before they go bad. Any ideas what I can make with them? Are there any easy ways to prepare something that stores well in the fridge or freezer? At this point, I’m even open to canning options.

These cherries are just so yummy, I’d hate to see them go bad. Please help!