Strawberries, Cherries, & the Glory of Summer Fruit!

Anyone else loving how much fruit is in season this time of year? I LOVE it! I’m sitting here munching on a breakfast of grapes, watermelon and greek yogurt as I type. I also love blackberries and they are so sweet right now you don’t even need to dust them with splenda. And strawberries! It’s a challenge to find non gased strawberries (if anyone has tips for identifying gased strawberries besides tasting them please share) but when you find a perfect flat that’s sweet and juicy it’s heaven!

Not familiar with the abundance of summer fruits available for consumption? I got your back! These fruits come into season gradually over the summer months. Some, like strawberries, start to disappear from mid-July, while others, like the currants, don’t come into their own until later on in the summer.

• Apricots: Eat on their own; halve, stuff and bake; cook and puree to use in ice cream, mousse or soufflé.
• Blackberries: Pick from the hedgerows at the end of summer, rinse thoroughly before use. Perfect stewed with apples, alone or in crumbles and pies.
• Blackcurrants: Their intense flavor is best mixed with other fruits like strawberries, raspberries or apples. Puree and use in fools and ice creams.
• Blueberries: Sweet enough to eat raw without sugar. Also good with pancakes, in cakes, lightly stewed and spooned over ice cream, or baked into healthy blueberry muffins.
• Cherries: Sweet varieties are good raw and can be added to salads and fruit salads. Sharper varieties need cooking, to use in tarts, compotes, pancake fillings or as a tart sauce to serve with meat.
• Gooseberries: are very versatile. Click here for gooseberry recipes.
• Loganberries: A cross between a raspberry and a blackberry, these are quite hard to come by. They’re good raw with sugar and cream, pureed as a sauce, or to make a mousse or fool.
• Plums: Lots of different varieties, available right through the summer. Most are sweet enough to eat raw, or you can bake them, or make them into crumbles, pies or tarts. Try slices added to green or fruit salads, or bake them alongside meat.
• Raspberries: Eat raw, mix with other summer fruit in red fruit salads or compotes, use to fill flans or scones, puree to make sorbet, ice cream or a tangy sweet sauce.
• Redcurrants: Very pretty, but very tart. Add to blackcurrants and stew with sugar for pies, crumbles or summer pudding.
• Strawberries: favorite of all the summer fruit. Click here for strawberry recipes.