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Vanilla Roasted Stone Fruit with Masala Chai Infused Coconut Whipped Cream
This time of year is one of my favorites, for fresh local fruit. Stone fruit season means some of the most flavorful and sweetest fruits you’ll find all year. Peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums and the hybrids apriums, pluots — just to name a few.
I find, much like with various vegetables and other fruits, roasting the stone fruit truly brings out it’s inherent sweetness. The natural sugars as well as the small amount of coconut sugar also caramelize and we end up with an incredible rich and deep flavored sauce. The finely ground, fresh vanilla bean compliments stone fruit so well by bringing a fragrant and almost smoky, earthy depth to the light sweetness. Many times if I am working with particularly ripe stone fruit, which can tend to be very juicy, I will actually pour off some of the sauce, after roasting and I simply reduce it down by more than half, over a medium heat. This creates a delicious, rich syrup, perfect for drizzling over the coconut cream topped fruit or over yogurt or other treats.
This recipe is a pretty simple one, I really enjoy the roasted fruit as it is, topped with the creamy hint of spiced masala chai infused coconut cream. You can feel free to follow the same recipe and simply use whipped heavy cream or even creme fraiche instead of the coconut cream. This roasted stone fruit would also be wonderful layered with yogurt, sorbet, ice cream or frozen yogurt for a delicious parfait. You can top it with nuts and seeds or your favorite granola. Of course, you can always stand over the oven and eat the roasted fruit straight from the pan, which I may have done a time or two.
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Coconut Apricot Cardamom Bourbon Popsicles {Vegan}
Thankfully it has since broke, but this past week, we had the most insane heat wave here in Southern California. After living here just over a year, I haven’t felt anything quite like this. Several days of right around 100ºF and many days even a few degrees more. Now, we don’t get any of that nasty humidity I am used to from my days on the East Coast, but mugginess or not, 100 degrees is DAMN hot.
Early in the week, we had been in the desert, in Palm Springs, on a much needed anniversary getaway and we came home ready to work our butts off on the various projects we have going on in our cooler beach breeze town of Long Beach. Instead, without any air conditioning and not a breeze to be found, we found ourselves doing a lot of laying around in undergarments, drinking tons of water and we planned lots of meals at restaurants in air conditioning. Seriously guys, I sweat in places this week, that I didn’t even know was possible.
After our lovely organic farmer, Tony, dropped off our CSA box on Wednesday afternoon, I took a peek inside at the goodies and saw some beautiful freshly picked apricots and I instantly thought that they would be perfect for some boozy popsicles for the next day, that might help take my mind off of the furnace we were living in.
