Lucid Food_ Cooking for an Eco-Conscious Life - Louisa Shafia [66]
Strain the cream, discarding the lavender buds, and whip it until it forms soft peaks. While whipping slowly, gradually add the honey and whip to incorporate.
To make the filling, toss the apricots with the lemon juice and maple syrup.
To serve, halve the biscuits. Spoon the apricot pieces on the bottom half, top with cream, and cover with the top half of the biscuit.
Fresh Berry Dessert Sauce
This is a quick sauce that’s not overly sweet. Serve it over cake, ice cream, or yogurt. Strawberries, mulberries, blackberries, raspberries, and boysenberries will all work well, either on their own or mixed. For a piquant sauce, be sure to use sweet, full-flavored berries.
Makes 1½ cups sauce
2 cups fresh berries, washed, stemmed, and coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
8 grinds of freshly ground black pepper
Combine all the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and pulse about 10 times. The sauce should be coarse, with small chunks of berries. Chill for 30 minutes before serving so the flavors can marry. The sauce is best used within 24 hours.
Fresh Fruit Sorbet
You can make sorbet by simply freezing fruit and pushing it through a juicer. That’s it. While plain fruit in season is quite sweet on its own, you can top the sorbet with maple syrup or any other sweetener of your choice. Toppings could include chopped nuts, cacao nibs, or whipped cream. If the fruit freezes for more than an hour, it will be too hard, and you will need to thaw it a bit before it can pass smoothly through the juicer.
Serves 4
1½ pounds (about 6 cups sliced) fresh fruit, such as strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, peaches, cherimoyas, guavas, papaya, and bananas, stemmed and seeded
If necessary, cut the fruit into pieces 1 inch wide so the pieces will fit easily into the funnel of the juicer. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and spread the fruit on the baking sheet. Freeze for 1 hour.
Set up a juicing machine and push the fruit through the funnel. Serve the sorbet immediately.
Blueberry Cobbler with Oat Scone Topping
In summer, look for blueberries on hikes in temperate parts of the country. Last summer, I found enough for an entire pie on a hike in upstate New York. Wild blueberries can be even sweeter than farmers’ market berries, while store-bought berries can have high pesticide residues. So if you get the chance to pick them yourself, you might end up with a healthier and tastier cobbler. Serve with good-quality vanilla ice cream.
Serves 8
SCONE TOPPING
¾ cup rolled oats
¾ cup flour
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into ¼-inch pieces, plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
¼ cup brown rice syrup
FILLING
3 pints blueberries
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
½ cup brown rice syrup
Pinch of salt
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Butter a 10-inch pie dish.
To make the topping, grind the oats in a food processor for 30 seconds. Set aside 2 tablespoons of the ground oats in a large bowl. Add the flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg to the food processor and process until the ingredients are mixed. Add the cold butter and process until the pieces are pea-size or smaller. Transfer to a bowl. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the egg and brown rice syrup. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix just until the dough comes together.
To make the filling, add the blueberries to the 2 tablespoons of reserved oats. Add the lemon juice, vanilla extract, brown rice syrup, and salt and stir until the berries are coated. Scrape the filling into the pie dish. Crumble the scone topping over the filling, leaving small holes so that the berries can release their steam. Drizzle the topping with the melted butter. Place the pie dish on a