Fruit Tips.

Fruits are generally harvested and sold under-ripe so that the firmness protects from damages. Even at a farm, the farmer knows that you probably won't be eating all the fruit right away and don't want you to have mush the next day.

Plant-ripening fruits, like citrus fruits, most berries, grapes, cherries, melons, pineapple, and plums don't develop more flavor after being harvested. Apricots, avocados, bananas, kiwis, mangoes, pears, peaches, nectarines, persimmons, and tomatoes ripen and soften and have their flavors peak after a couple of days. Apples will soften and sweeten also, but most people prefer them crisp.

The ripening enzyme in fruit is a gas called ethylene, so trapping the gas will expedite the ripening process. Place fruits in a brown paper bag. Adding an already ripe piece of fruit will double the amount of ethylene.

Many fruits found in the supermarket are picked under-ripe, stored in a distribution center and sprayed with ethylene gas when the supermarket demands them to be ripe and ready.

To get fruits with the best flavor and quality, figure out what's in season. Otherwise, the produce is being shipped hundreds and thousands of miles away - great for the environment - or even if it's locally grown, if it's out of season it's grown in a greenhouse emitting lots of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to keep the ideal temperatures - also great for the environment.

The best way to store fruit, like raspberries for example, is to take them out of the basket and lay them in a single layer on a flat plate lined with paper towel to absorb moisture. This way the fruit is not piled on top of each other, causing dents and trapping moisture - both which encourage spoiling.

Refrigerate fruit only after they have ripened. The cold will slow the loss of moisture, but if refrigerated too soon, the cold will cause the fruit to become mealy.

For refrigerated fruit, take them out a couple hours before using them to rejuvenate the flavor that was suspended in the cold.

Always keep tomatoes at room temperature. Wrap cut tomatoes in plastic wrap.

To blanch or not to blanch before freezing? Blanch if you are not going to use the fruit within a few weeks. The blanching stops the ripening enzymes that create off-flavors and consume the fruit's nutrients. If you use the fruit within a few weeks, wash and cut and rob with powdered vitamin C which will diminish browning. Put them on a baking sheet, stick in the freezer and when they are hard and frozen, transfer to a plastic freezer bag or container.

Fruits that brown when exposed to air include apples, bananas, peaches, and pears.

Roasted Strawberries.

Mum recently went on a short trip to Chicago and brought me back the Edible Chicago magazine. I love this magazine. The main reason was for a recipe for roasted strawberries - curiously sounds delicious! Thanks Mum!

8 ounces strawberries, hulled aka take the tops off
1 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablesppoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 fine grain sea salt
1/2 tablespoon port wine
a few drops of good balsamic vinegar

preheat the oven to 350 F

use a rimmed baking sheet or large baking dish lined with parchment paper - you don't want the juices running off the sheet onto the oven floor.

cut each strawberry in half or into quarters if larger. add the berries to a mixing bowl. in a separate bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, olive oil, and salt and pour over the strawberries. Toss very gently to coat. arrange the strawberries in a single layer on your prepared baking sheet.

roast for about 40 minutes, just long enough for the berry juices to thicken, but not burn - watch the edges of the pan in particular.

while still warm, scrape the berries and juices from the pan into a small bowl. stir in the port and baslamic. use immeditaly or let cool. can be stored in the fridge for up to a week.


...Adapted by Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day

ok just as I posted this, Mum came down with a bowl of roasted strawberries - way ahead of me!  I just changed the amounts of the syrups in the recipe to half as the original recipe tastes a bit too much of maple syrup and not so much of strawberries - still sweet, the strawberries shrunk and the seeds add a bit of crunch but interesting recipe nonetheless!!

The best part of the magazine was one article titled ChicaGrows....very appropriate for Mum being in Chicago - with her Irish accent she pronounces it like Chicargo. I wonder if she ate any gray-Ham crackers while there ;)

click here for the Edible White Mountains link aka NH

At the Newburyport Farmers Market on Sunday I recommended this recipe to the chef of Enzo in Tannery Marketplace who shops there every Sunday to make a Farmers Market Menu out of what she finds that day and she said this recipe would be better for California strawberries, or those that don't have as much flavour and need the balsamic and syrups and roasting to bring out the juices whereas fresh, peak of the season strawberries are best eaten as they are, in their naturally goodness state. There's only a little less than a week of strawberry season left, so....I agree.

What's in Season: Strawberries

Strawberry in Latin is fraga, which refers to it's sweet sweet fragrance. Nothing says summer like the sweet sweet smell of freshly picked strawberries (shipped grocery store kinds don't count). 

buying: plump, firm, dry and blemish-free (take bad ones out to prevent the others from catching molds). the more fragrant, the better tasting they will be. it's always good to smell your produce and strawberries should smell fragrantly candy sweet. the fruit should be completely red - no white bits - and the green cap-hats should not look dried out. shake the box a little to make sure that the strawberries aren't stuck together, which would be a bad sign of mush or mold. remember, bigger isn't always better - it is very often that the small, darker strawberries are much sweeter and more flavorful. 

storing: it's probably not that hard to hold back, especially at the height of a short season, but it's best to eat your strawberries as soon as possible because they begin ripening as soon as they have been picked (local farmer's markets produce are usually picked that morning). don't wash the entire quart - only wash what you are going to eat. the moisture will easily spoil the berries - even if it's a rainy farmers market, keep them out to dry a bit before putting them in the fridge. also - don't take the little green cap-hats off until ready to wash and eat because they will help prevent moisture absorption. Lying them on a single layer is the best way to prevent bruising and on top of a paper towel will absorb excess moisture. strawberries also freeze very well, so laying them flat on a baking sheet to freeze then moving them to a freezer bag is a great way to have tasty strawberries all year round (although nothing tastes more like summer than a freshly picked juicy strawberry!)

strawberries and shortcake galore at the farmer's market.

tips: strawberries taste best at room temperature so leave them out for a bit before eating them. refrigeration kinda spoils the flavor, but they are so delicate that it really is best to eat them the same day.

if you're cooking with strawberries, the colour will turn from red to a deep purple however adding citrus like lemon or orange, or even baking with rhubarb, will preserve the red.

medical: apparently eating strawberries can help whiten teeth!

recipes: i overheard this recipe by a woman who stopped by the farmers market and bought a whole bunch of strawberries for her husband. I asked her what she was going to make with all them - jams? - but she said her husband just loved them and they are just so good at the peak of the summer season she wanted to take advantage. i suggested adding them to spinach salads and told her the night before i had a snack of crackers with goat cheese, sliced strawberry and cracked black pepper, which she loved the idea of. she said the Blue Strawberry, which is now the Black Trumpet, used to serve strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar. each in their own bowl, the strawberries get dunked into the sour cream and then into the brown sugar. everyone loves to dip, what a great combination! 

Like fruity sangria, add strawberries to summer cocktails 

Fact: apparently the seeds on the outside of strawberries are actually the ovaries.
I've also heard a lot of people who have eaten too many strawberries and have become allergic to them.