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A fruity fete

Colorado’s crop is in – here’s how to make the most of it

The early spring and late frost killed the apricots. Birds ate most of the few sweet cherries. If the weather stays warm and the good Lord smiles upon the Western Slope, the peaches will come in full force any day now.

Despite a harsh climate, rugged landscape and irascible weather, Colorado manages to produce fabulous fruit. So get ready, you home cooks and fruit fanatics, peaches, nectarines and raspberries are here. Plums and grapes are coming. Cherries are all but gone, but tart pie cherries are coming in.

It’s July, and it’s a baker’s paradise.

If you can get them, do snag some of the season’s last sweet cherries, which were especially scrumptious this year. Far too precious – at $4 to $8 per pound locally – to bother with baking, they’re marvelous mid-afternoon snacks, capable of subverting any sugar craving. They also make a fine company dessert, halved, pitted and cooked for a moment with a bit of brandy, a pinch of cinnamon and a squeeze of lemon, served over ice cream.

And while you’re enjoying those juicy burgundy nuggets, give thanks to the farmers who bring them to us.

“I hate picking cherries,” Matt Hauser of MLS Fruit grumbled, describing how you have to twist the fruit by its stem to remove it from the tree. “It takes an hour and a half to fill a box.”

Hauser brings fruit from his family’s Palisade orchards to Durango, as well as sourcing fruit and vegetables from his neighbors, selling it every day at the corner of 23rd Street and Main Avenue.

Did we say peaches?

Hauser’s trees are already bearing the summer fruit, and the earliest versions, while not as full flavored as those in midsummer, are a snappy addition to breakfast cereal and yogurt, a tangy topping for ice cream and waffles and a happy surprise in the lunch box.

Leslie Kerby of Kerby Orchards outside Farmington is too busy tending his peaches to lament the loss of his entire apricot crop, which bit the dust when temperatures dove to 17 degrees on April 10.

“That and the cherries, that’s all we lost, and that’s real good,” he said, taking a farmer’s attitude toward Mother Nature’s caprice.

The upside is that he’s harvesting some of the sweetest peaches and nectarines he’s had in years. Kerby’s wife, Roxanne, is looking forward to the little Italian plums they grow coming in shortly. She chops the dark blue-violet fruit into a half-inch dice and sprinkles it generously on top of her peach pies and nectarine crumbles, giving the creations a layer of unexpected flavor.

“Plum-peach, plum-nectarine, plum-pear, it’s amazing to have the double fruit flavor,” she said, noting that she adds more plums to crisps and crumbles, less to delicate pie crusts.

Fruit desserts are some of the fastest, healthiest sweets you can make. A simple crisp with a topping of oats, nuts, sugar and butter takes less than 20 minutes from thought to oven (especially if you use a food processor to slice the fruit.) That all-time favorite, peach pie, is low on sugar and calories, at 7 grams and 260 calories. A meringue filled with berries or stone fruits and dolloped with whipped cream really shouldn’t count at all, with a mere 160 calories and 2 grams of good protein.

So, as long as we’re thinking healthy, (which won’t last long, I promise you) which fruits are best for you? Which ones pack the best nutritional punch with the lowest sugar fall-out?

“I recommend the ones you like, the ones you’ll eat and that won’t rot on your counter,” said local dietician Mikel Love. “Fruit is a great source of carbohydrates, vitamins and antioxidants. It’s really good for you.”

Berries tend to qualify as superfoods, rich in antioxidants and low in sugar, with stone fruits and melons following on their heels. For herself and her family, Love tucks berries into salads, stuffs plain yogurt with as much fruit as she can get in a bowl and answers her children’s demands for sweet snacks with peaches or raspberries. For a real dessert, she tumbles fresh fruit into a bowl and tosses on a bit of slightly sweetened whipped cream – nutritious fruit with a little protein and a minimal amount of sugar.

“I say fruit is great for a little sweet treat so you don’t find yourself craving sugar and go for the chocolate stash,” she said.

But enough with the healthy stuff, let’s go for a little delicious decadence. One friend says a sure dinner party winner is an easy-peasy dessert made by splitting a pound cake in half, filling and frosting it with lemon curd and topping it with whatever berry suits your fancy. Whether you make the cake and filling yourself is up to you. (She doesn’t, and says no one notices.)

While we all think of upside-down cake as pineapple, stone fruits make a beautiful presentation, too. Kerby’s little purple Stanley plums create a sweet and piquant version, and nectarines work, too. Cobblers, as simple as making sweet biscuits, come together quickly, and like crisps and crumbles are great with a mixture of fruits – peaches and blueberries, nectarines and cherries, raspberries and just about anything.

Strawberry shortcake is always a summertime favorite. Grocery stores are full of berries this time of year, none of them locally or even state grown. Still, they’re in season and taste much better for it. A few local farmers have experimented with growing berries, and you can find some at the Durango Farmers Market. (Rowher’s Farm has red raspberries in now and golden ones to come.)

One cousin, well known as the best cook in the family, saves calories by making strawberry jam with half the sugar. It tastes even berry-er than the higher sugar version and holds the allure of large berry chunks on your toast. For a fast company dessert, she whips together a crème anglaise, a thin stove-top custard, to pour over fresh fruit. If you’re counting calories, skip the whipped cream; if not, it adds a touch of richness.

Luscious peaches, super sweet cherries, juicy berries – all you need to enjoy them is a quick rinse under water and then straight into the mouth. Really, what could be better?

phasterok@durangoherald.com

Mixed Berry Crumble

NOTES: For a lighter topping, adjust topping ingredients to 1½ cups each of flour, sugar and nuts, 1½ sticks butter and 1½ teaspoons cinnamon. This recipe also can be made with other fruit, just use less flour with less juicy fruits and adjust the sugar according to the sweetness of the fruit.

Servings: 10-12

Ingredients:

8 cups mixed berries

¼ cup flour

¼ cup sugar

1-2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

For topping:

2 cups each, flour, sugar and chopped walnuts or pecans

2 sticks butter, cut up

1½ teaspoons cinnamon

Method:

Mix berries with flour and sugar and put in a greased 13-by-9-inch pan. Drizzle with lemon juice.

For topping, mix dry ingredients until combined. Cut in butter with fingers or pastry blender until mixture is crumbly and clumps are the size of peas. Spread lightly over berries.

Bake at 375 F for 40-45 minutes until brown and bubbling.

Recipe courtesy of Cheri Meisels.

Jul 8, 2014
Sour Cherry Cobbler


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