about our recipe contest... We had no idea just how difficult it would be to choose our winners! The submissions we received were outstanding recipes, showing us that we have some very savvy foodies in our midst! Our contestants were people who know food, know how to create with food and are very talented when it comes to combining the fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs and honey available at our market into satisfying, delightful, healthful and surprising combination dishes.We will showcase our winning recipes over the next month, starting today with our first placed winner... When Margaret was notified of her win, she was thrilled and said, "I love your market - it has such a welcoming, homey, family feel while at the same time being very upbeat and buzzing with lots of energy. All the vendors are so friendly - it's what I imagine farmers markets to be like long ago, when life was simpler and our connection to food was much more direct. It's an honour to be connected with the SWEFM, even in this small way."
a few thoughts about new recipes, cookbooks & experimentation...I have a confession to make. I love reading cookbook introductions. They are full of intriguing information and inspiring creativity. They cajole, explain and refute standard beliefs. They develop your understanding of cooking and food science, and they are often teeming with thoughtful introspection and solid nutritional information. Reading them is like sitting down with a good friend and having a fascinating conversation. Cup of tea in hand, pondering the terrific recipes that we'd received in our recipe contest, I escaped for a bit and revisited an old favourite: Williams & Sonoma's Essentials of Healthful Cooking.
There Mary Abbott Hess writes, We tend to appreciate food more when our sense of taste is stimulated and surprised. When we get bored, as often happens when restricting any part of our usual diet, we crave flavour, which can lead to bingeing on foods high in fat or sugar. Artfully flavouring food is an easy way to keep cravings under control.
Margaret Bose Johnson is the winner of our first placed recipe contest prize: Birds & Bees organic wine and a bottle set. In her recipe, she masters the art of flavouring food and surprising and stimulating our tastebuds with her recipe for Ruby Fruit Salad with Pomegranate Glaze. An artful take on the traditional fruit salad, we loved her recipe its beauty, for the variety of ingredients it uses from our market and for its versatility & adaptability (you can use any fruits that are available and change the recipe as things move in and out of season), and because it appeals to our inner artists (the colours! the textures! the shapes! the creativity that it allows the cook!).
Margaret Bose Johnson is a food blogger and a shopper at our market. You can read her blog at www.kitchenfrau.com. There she writes about the recipe she created with fruits purchased at our SWEFM market:
a bowl full of sparkling jewels. This ruby red fruit salad expresses the bounty of summer with the rich palette of colours and tones only nature can provide. Just look at those wonderful shades of red and crimson and scarlet and burgundy (I love listing all the ‘red’ words.)
I’m sure you all make fruit salads many different ways, and many of you probably make them like I usually do – as a means of using up any unused fruits sadly lurking in the fruit bowl and crisper drawer. They make rainbow coloured fruit mixtures that are all delicious and refreshing. Anything goes when making fruit salads – there really are no bad combinations. Just peel, pit and dice the fruit into a bowl. Quick, easy – no thought required.
But sometimes, I want to make a fruit salad that I have deliberately planned, one with a purpose, and one that looks especially beautiful. Sometimes I want to feel like Monet or Cezanne or Van Gogh, and I want to play with nature’s brilliant colours. Sometimes I want to feed my soul. After all, we do feast first with our eyes.
This single-hued ruby salad is as stunning as a beautiful piece of art – but much better tasting!
It’s a still-life in a bowl.
ruby fruit salad with pomegranate glaze
ingredients
6 cups assorted diced red fruits - use a combinations of watermelon cubes, quartered strawberries, diced red-fleshed plums, cherries - halved and pitted, raspberries, red currants, etc. (if using red currants, use no more than 1/2 cup of them as their flavour is very intense)
1 cup pomegranate juice
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon rosewater (optional)
instructions
Pour the pomegranate juice into a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Let gently boil until reduced to about 2 tablespoons. This will take from 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the size of your saucepan and degree of heat. Watch it and reduce the heat as it gets nearer the end so that it doesn't start to brown and caramelize.
While the pomegranate juice is reducing, prepare your fruit and place it in a serving bowl. Leave the raspberries out to add at the very end so they don't get broken up.
When the juice has reduced to about 2 tablespoons, stir in the honey and lemon juice. Pour the glaze over the fruit and toss gently to coat everything. Add the raspberries and toss once more, very gently, to mix them in.
Serve as is, or with a dollop of plain yogurt or whipped cream. The ruby fruit salad can also be served over ice cream, or pancakes, or angel food cake. It's great over a bowl of greek yogurt for breakfast.
And it looks so beautiful.
Recipe from Margaret Bose Johnson, 1st Placed Winner in our Annual Recipe Contest
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Intro by Sheri Hendsbee
