Sasa Bear Crafts

We are signed up with a local farm, Full Circle Farm, to be part of their CSA program. Community Supported Agriculture is a way for people to support their local farmers by pledging their support ($$) to this community-supported farm, which is to my knowledge usually (always?) organic. These pledges support the farm’s operations including supplies and salary, and in return the pledgee (pledger?) receives a share of the bounty. I love this part!

Full Circle delivers produce every week in Seattle and also other nearby towns. We are signed up to receive their produce box every week, but you don’t have to commit to that. For $30 we receive so much food that I now rarely buy produce at Thriftway. I appreciate the fact I can meet my farmers at the West Seattle Farmer’s Market and talk with them, and also that I could drive to this farm if I wanted, to see how my food is being grown. I find this highly rewarding and have no weight on my conscious about our food travelling thousands of miles just to get to our plate.

Did you know that on average, it costs the US 10 calories of energy to give us 1 calorie of food? Think about how many calories you need in a day to survive. This equation does not make sense to me, and I’m trying to reduce my share of it.

Fruit abounds in the summer! There are bowls of cherries and berries in my fridge, bowls with apricots, apples, peaches and plums on my counter. It’s getting hard to keep up with all the fruit in this house.

Making a crisp is an easy way to use up fruit before it goes bad and makes for a delightful, low in refined sugar dessert since most of the sweetness is presented in the form of fructose from the fruits.

Before going in

Recipe courtesy Cooks Illustrated

Plum & Peach Crisp

Topping Mixture

6 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour

1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon table salt

5 tablespoons unsalted butter , cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled

3/4 cup pecans or whole almonds, chopped coarse (or chopped fine if mixing topping by hand)

Fruit

2 1/2 – 3 pounds plums and peaches (total – not each) , peeled, pitted, and cut into half-inch wedges (about 6 cups total)

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon quick-cooking tapioca

1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest from 1 lemon

Instructions

1. For the Topping: Place flour, brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in food processor workbowl fitted with steel blade. Add chilled butter and pulse until mixture moves from dry sand-like appearance with large lumps of butter to a coarse cornmeal texture, about three 4-second bursts. Add nuts and pulse until mixture resembles crumbly sand, about five 1-second bursts. Do not overprocess or mixture will take on a smooth, cookie-dough-like texture. (To mix by hand, allow butter pieces to sit at room temperature for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, mix flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in medium bowl. Add butter; toss to coat. Pinch butter chunks and dry mixture between fingertips until mixture looks like crumbly wet sand. Add nuts and toss to distribute evenly. Do not overmix.) Refrigerate mixture while preparing fruit, at least 15 minutes.
2. Toss plums, sugar, tapioca, lemon juice, and zest in medium bowl.
3. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Scrape fruit mixture with rubber spatula into 8-inch square (2 quart) baking pan or 9-inch round deep dish pie plate. Distribute chilled topping evenly over fruit; bake for 40 minutes. Increase oven temperature to 400 degrees; bake until fruit is bubbling and topping is deep golden brown, about 5 minutes longer. Serve warm or at room temperature.

NOTES

1. I didn’t peel the plums, only peaches and liked how it turned out.

2. I used walnuts on top b/c that’s what I had on hand.

3. I didn’t have lemon, so used a little lemonade that was in the fridge instead. Didn’t seem to make a difference and the slight addition of tart was just right.

Tasty treat! Served with chocolate ice cream.