Fruit, fruit, fruit

Herbert is right: I'm on the bender! No not really, but I have not had the energy to do anything, but I intend to rectify that.

Be prepared for a long post... But I also promise allot of pictures!

First out is a;

Fig, plum and apple pie

You'll need enough puff pastry to cover the dish your using (I don't see why it's necessary to make your it when the store bought is so good)
4 plums divided and tossed in flour (to help soak up the excess moisture)
4 figs cut in quarters
1 tart apple
A hand-full of almonds chopped
2 eggs
1 1/2 dl caster sugar
1 tbs flour



Now first thing to do, (after you put the oven on 175 °C) is to cover the dish with the pastry, then you toss in the fruit in any order you want (I put the figs on top).
When this is done you whisk the eggs and sugar until fluffy, stir in flour and almonds into the eggs. And then pour it onto the fruits, bake in the lower part of the oven for about 15 min check so that the filling is still. Serve with custard or vanilla ice cream.



I know that I've been bugging you about the fact that autumn has arrived in our cold country, but that's just because here on my little island the autumn colors and the cosy feeling doesn't last long (almost all of the wonderful leaves are gone and it rains almost every day).
The other week however I was out on a walk in the forest and took these pictures:







Getting on with the recipes;

Poached William pears

One of our grocary stores had a really great price on William pears so we bought 4 kg of them, 1 kg to eat straight as they were and the rest to poach because it's a great way to take care of fruit and here is how you do it;



3 kg William pears (you can use other pears as well but I prefer William because of the taste and texture)
2 l water
1 3/4 l caster sugar
5-6 pieces of fresh ginger (or as much as you like, I think I had a bit more ginger than that)
2-3 star anise
1 vanilla pod
and some lemon juice

Boil water, sugar, ginger, lemon and spices until the sugar is dissolved.
Peal the pears, half and pit them (you can either peal the pears before you start the syrup and out them in lemon juice so that they don't become brown or you can take the saucepan from the heat and put the pears in as they are ready).
Bring the syrup and pears up to a boil and let them simmer for about 15-25 minutes depending on the size, ripeness and kind of pear.

Let the pear cool of in the syrup over night or over the day depending on when you get started (it's good if you can leave them in for about 8 hours) then put the pears with some of the syrup in the freezer I portioned them to 4 pear halves per bag and enough syrup to keep them covered.



So what can you do with the poached pears?
Well anything you want, what do say about a Xantésoufflé with a pear compote?



Xantésoufflé with pear compote

55 g caster sugar and some extra for the soufflé form
3 large eggs divided into whites and yolks
1 large egg
1 large egg white
4 tbs flour
3 dl milk
1 tsp vanilla essences
2 1/2 tbs Xanté or any other pear liqueur
butter for the form

And about 10 poached pear halves

Put the oven to 180 °C.

Whisk together sugar, 1 whole egg, 1 egg yolk, flour, milk and vanilla in a saucepan and gently bring it to a boil (stir the whole time) stir until it makes a thick sauce.
Take the pan from the heat and one at a time stir in the rest of the egg yolks, let the mixture cool down some then add the liqueur.

Whisk the egg whites until it forms a stiff foam, when they are firm enough take some of the egg whites and ad to the liqueur batter then incorporate the rest of the egg whites to the batter gently (turn them in, do NOT whisk).

Butter a souffléform that will hold 1 3/4 l and powder it with sugar (this will help the soufflé to rise and not get caught in the form). Cut the pears into little bits and put them in the bottom of the form and pour some of the syrup on them.

When this is done you pour the soufflé batter over the pears and bake the soufflé for about 45 minutes or until it is raised and golden-brown.

An important thing to remember when you make a soufflé: DO NOT OPEN THE OVENHATCH! That will make the soufflé implode!



And another reason for not posting is that my cat has been sick, first he had stomach problems and now he has a wound on his paw so he must wear this:





and let me tell you he's not happy about it, at all!

Well that's it for this time promise I'll be better with the posts from now on.