Being laid off means I've been watching a lot of day time television (damn you Oprah for going off the air when I needed you most!) but today Jamie Oliver made a full dinner in less than 30 minutes and I gather he does this in every episode! But seriously, in this episode he roasted up a bunch of plums to serve over ice cream. This chill in the air means I don't mind turning on our oven for the first time in months and giving some of those stone fruit I brought home a good fall roasting!
As Jamie would say it was easy-peasy. Just halve and quarter assorted stone fruit. I used peaches and Italian prune plums that I got from Bizjak Farms at the Wychwood farmers market but any combination of peaches, plums, nectarines and apricots would be wonderful. Toss with a teaspoon of cinnamon and drizzle with a tiny bit of balsamic vinegar. Roast in a 350 degree oven until fruit is soft and yielding and has released it's juices (about 25-30 minutes). You'll have a sweet, spicy and slightly sour fruit and a lovely sauce which is fantastic on top of vanilla ice cream or plain pound cake.
You could stop there. But I had some leftover Orange Cornmeal Cake and thought the crunch of cornmeal and touch of orange really complimented the fruit. But it needed something else, enter my newest discovery, Brown Sugar Whipped Cream.
It happened a few weeks ago completely by accident. We were having company for dinner and I was baking a pie and wanted some whipped cream to serve on top. Usually I sweeten our whipped cream with some nice Ontario honey as I find white sugar never dissolves very well in the cream. But we were out of honey that day, so I was digging around in the pantry and thought maybe brown sugar would work. I mean switching out the white sugar for brown in a pound cake does a wonderful thing, taking a perfectly nice pound cake to something so much more special with rich caramel flavour.
Brown sugar whipped cream is especially good on something like an apple pie or apple cake and it's not grainy one bit. In fact it would be awesome on top of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. Try it and see if you don't love it. Simply add two tablespoons of dark brown sugar per cup of whipping cream and whip until thick. Delicious!
As an aside this is what it is like behind the scenes here at Folks Gotta Eat. Check out my helper. Always watching, always waiting...wouldn't he love some cream to fall on the floor...
Are you excited for fall? What recipes are you looking most forward to making? Let me know in the comments below!
Hyedie - this fruit is also good served over that plain pound cake that all the Portuguese bakeries in all our neighbourhoods sell! Less work too!