Produce with Benefits!

Let's make some magic!

So yesterday I reaped the first benefits of my position in produce. Apparently, occasions like this are rare because it's not 'fair' to every other employee in the store because they don't work in a department that babysits perishable fruits and vegetables everyday. Hmm. I am somewhat unsympathetic? But anyways, this beautiful bowl of figs was allowed to come home with me. So did some fingerling potatoes but they will have their own day. Staring at them on my kitchen counter, numerous occasions came to mind flipping through magazines o

r recipes that called for fresh figs and saying to myself, 'Dang, not in season' or 'I'm just not a person that keeps figs in the house all the time so I can't make...". Fixed! So these lovely Black Missions became a project. I'm not one of those nutty

gluttons that gorges themselves on fresh, raw figs in a sitting. I do that with many another thing but not figs. So I went on a hunt of what I could do with these lovelies without a) having to eat

figs in something different every night this week or b) each of them softening to a disquieting slurry in my fridge. Refrigeration only does so much.

So I enlisted Petihe (Pet-eh-heh, which is the Polish pronunciation for perogies. Seemed appropriate.), that's her below. I give you the phonetic pronunciation for the times you will undoubtedly address her or bring her up in conversation. It's always so embarrassing when you mispronounce someone's name. She is my set of nesting measuring cups, she has a true wealth of kitchen wisdom having three bodies and all. And I am so 'into' anthropomorphizing things.

So after a considerable amount of recipes for figs on pizza, which I'm not sure Matt would be mega stoked on, and most recipes requiring dried figs (which in truth I like considerably less) I decided jam wouldbe really nice. I found a recipe for a dried fruit slump or dried fruit grunt,a type of dessert that came out of the war-time England. Why in the world would you try and pitch a dessert by calling it a 'grunt'. Apparently, they call it a slump because when you serve it the biscuit atop the fruit slumps in the dish. And apparently 'grunt' comes from the sound the fruit make as they cook. I don't even really know what to do with that.

This recipe eventually caught my eye, and held it. (That is a somewhat weird turn of phrase no? Caught it like in a baseball glove. Even weirder.) But 'pure abundance' sounded really lovely and figs always make me thing of Jesus and the bible. It makes me think specifically of the Ten

Commandments movie which also makes me think of how friggin' epic Anne Baxter despite the fact that it's outrageously absurd to think that they would have had fitted bodices in the Egyptian dynasty. Doubtful, but I've watched the movie for that reason alone before.

I absolutely bloodied myself before I even got started. Washing the breakfast dishes, I sliced my finger on a misleading edge of some tongs we have. I swear I felt it scrape against the bone. And it bled as I raced around the house with my hand raised above my head. Lacey is screaming at her computer screen somewhere saying that this is so disgusting and why am I talking about this? It is so disgusting but I could not let it go undocumented money shot and all. Matt teases me about my band-aid thing. They other day he said, "You love band-aid. Before we got married I didn't have any. And now we have four boxes." And four boxes we do have. And it is really due to the fact that I am ten times as clumsy as Matt.Anyways, back to the food I guess. Gross. I'll probably edit that entire part out later because bodily fluids and food...I won't even go there. Sick.

I added a tad bit of Galliano at the end with the lemon juice. The option the recipe gives with the orange peel and the Cointreau made me think, "I like Galliano better and we still have almost a full bottle. It was a good choice but it almost made the figs taste like raspberries for some reason. But lemon and vanilla give it such a cool taste. Good choice Brianne.

That recipe didn't make even a quart jar of preserves but they are very good. And we have a jar about the same size with saskatoon preserves. That was my Tuesday. I'm off to the Beach with my notebook. God's creation has me inspired.

This is my favorite song right now. It ALWAYS makes me think of my bachelorette party which was bar none, the BEST party I have ever been to. Miss Shurmer you have a gift.