Dessert Improvisation #1

To put things mildly, the last couple of months have not been great for me, personally. I won't go into too much detail here, but if you read the preceding post, you'll get the end of what was a really shitty couple of weeks for me. I just haven't been doing a lot of cooking. When I get hungry, I pick through my pantry or the fridge and nothing really goes with anything else.

After Sid died, I spent some time cleaning out the pantry. One, I needed to get rid of an ant problem (I hadn't had ants in years, but this year, those little brats were everywhere, including my pantry). Two, there was stuff in there that I know had gone bad and it was just time to throw things out. I decided if I couldn't remember when or why I bought something, it was time to throw it out. I've reorganized my pantry and the exterminator had to come and take care of the ants, but now I'm left with a much more organized pantry. I've also organized my spices (and am not allowed by buy anymore, but that's another post) and thanks to a bad switch on the compressor of my big freezer, have a nicely cleaned and organized freezer (which has been replenished after losing everything in it).

Over July 4 weekend, I went to WV to spend time with my family. Weather was gorgeous and we spent most of our time on the new deck that my mother and her husband had put on the back of the house. My cousins were coming to visit and we were looking forward to a houseful of people and just enjoying some premium family time.

After the holiday, my cousins were going to spend a few days at my house, visiting family (including me). What a great motivator to get back in the kitchen and make a few things! My cousins have two children who are impressively good eaters, so I didn't have to restrict myself too much in my menu planning. First night they were there, I planned a nice roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and steamed asparagus.

Hmmm. I needed something for dessert. It's summer. Fruit. Fruit would be good here. What did I have? I had some black plums in the fridge that had been there a few weeks, but still seemed ok. OK, I can work with that. I love fruit crisps and had some vanilla ice cream in the freezer, but needed more than just plums to make the crisp.

Digging through my newly organized freezer, I found a bag of frozen blueberries from last year's farm share along with a bag of frozen blackberries from the same farm share. A ha! Time to improvise.

Dessert Improvisation #1 -- Plum, blueberry, and blackberry fruit crisp

For the filling:
6 black plums, peeled, pitted and cut into chunks
1 quart sized bag of frozen blueberries (maybe 1 cup or so)
1 quart sized bag of frozen blackberries (again, maybe a cup or more)
1 lemon -- zested and juiced
1 tsp vanilla paste
2-3 T flour
3 T sugar (I used a raw sugar, but granulated sugar is fine)

For the crisp:
1 stick of butter, cold, cut into small chunks
1/3 c light brown sugar
1/3 c white sugar
1/2 c rolled oats
3/4 c flour
pinch of kosher salt

Preheat oven to 375.

In a large bowl, place cut up plums, blueberries and blackberries. Add zest and juice of one lemon, the vanilla paste, the sugar and flour and toss to coat. Place in large baking dish.

For the topping, mix flour, oats, sugars and salt into a bowl. Put in the butter pieces and with clean hands, mush everything together until you have a nice crumble topping.  Place the topping over the fruit filling and bake for 45 minutes.

Serve warm with some vanilla ice cream, if desired.