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July 25, 2008

Summer Sweetness

July25-Apricots.jpgAll our early summer sunshine and intense heat has produced a fantastic apricot crop! Richard and I just picked about 40 pounds of fruit, a few a little on the green side because the wasps and squirrels will be digging in soon. But they’re ripening nicely inside. We should have lots left for our gathering next weekend after I freeze some for smoothies. Our apples are doing well, too, although the bears are harder to predict than the wasps and squirrels. One of these days we’ll get a plum tree, and maybe pear and peach, too. Fresh fruit all summer long, pesticide free and no shopping required! Anyone have a good apricot recipe?

Posted by anita at July 25, 2008 6:54 PM

Comments

Wow, I wish we were closer! Kiisseli, maybe?

Posted by: marja-leena | 19:25 25 July 2008

Yes, apricots go well with berries! I've had a couple of strawberry-apricot smoothies, nice combination. I'll probably end up freezing a lot of them for smoothies - if I don't eat half of them on the spot. They're so good!

Posted by: anita | 19:58 25 July 2008

Cripes, that's a LOT of apricots! I have no idea what you'd do with all those, other than make a ton of jam. Or get a dehydrator and dry them. My dad and I went to a local fruit stand the other day and they had billions of apricots, and I was thinking the same thing as you...what would I do with all these? You want to take advantage of local bounty but in this case, they're a ho-hum fruit to begin with and I'm not that into jam.

Posted by: Wandering Coyote | 09:29 26 July 2008

I'm not much into jam either, given the sugar intolerance, but we saw a great Good Eats episode (we adore Alton Brown) on drying your own fruit. If we didn't have 25 people arriving for the long weekend I'd try that, but I think these will keep long enough in the fridge to let our guests enjoy them.

I've just halved, pitted and filled 3 Ziplock bags for the freezer for my smoothies. Strawberry-apricot is a fabulous combination. The flavour ends up similar to raspberry. But then, I love apricots, they're my second favourite pit fruit after black cherries.

I wish we had a peach tree. I haven't had a properly ripened Okanagan peach in years. Store-bought ones, even local, are picked so green, they always taste powdery. These apricots are so sweet and juicy from all this sunshine, I can't stop eating them. We've polished off about 5 pounds of them already!

Posted by: anita | 11:09 28 July 2008