Somehow, even though the days are still warm, it feels like the inevitable march toward autumn has begum. I am not complaining as I love autumn; it’s my favorite season by far. With it come late summer and autumn foods. Apple picking has started (!!!) and other stone-fruits are plentiful. Enter dark red, tart and sweet plums. I decided to make some jam to preserve their flavor a little longer, and I think that it turned into one of my best jams in a good long while.
Sometimes when I am in Maine, I can be found in the woods, foraging for things, be it blackberries or mushrooms. I have been foraging for chanterelle mushrooms since I was a young child, so please don’t follow my lead on doing this activity unless you know what you are doing. Then again, making these turnovers is highly recommended. They are delicious with all sorts of mushrooms, including ones that you find at the shops or farmers markets. I made them with the intent to be appetizers, but they’d also be great as lunch, a light dinner, or even a breakfast or brunch item. They are buttery and savory and a little bit bacony — all good things for me!
Sometimes you just need to pull something together for a BBQ, potluck or having friends over to watch a game or movie. Enter this Pantry-Friendly Nacho Skillet Dip. I’m guessing many of you may already have some, if not all, of these ingredients in the house, and many of them are canned so shelf-stable and easy to keep on hand. Simple, and I mean super-simple, to pull together and stays hot for quite a while in the cast iron skillet. If you have leftover, they heat up really well in the oven as well.
Who wants breakfast? Recently, I filled my freezer with wild Maine blueberries — it is the season after all — Copeland Hill blueberries from family friends, The Warrens. And because I can’t just let an entire freeze of blueberries just sit there and tempt me, I made these “cinnamon roll” style blueberry swirls? And why “Milleswirlie”? Well, mille is thousand in Italian, and there are lots and lots of swirls — thus lots and lots of blueberries.
Blueberry Milleswirlie = Mille happy taste buds!
(PS: There is a little bit of store-bought blueberry jam in this recipe. It’s actually optional, but if you have ever baked with wild blueberries before, they can remain somewhat runny — in a gloriously delicious kind of way, but nevertheless a bit annoying when trying to roll the rolls. While I did use a corn starch slurry to help with binding, the pectin that is in the jam also helps.)
Plum Pie — in all it’s many variations — is a staple of German summer baking (recipe for this variation here: . I swear that “As American as Apple Pie…” could apply to Germans and their plum cakes also known as Pflaumenkuchen, Zwetschgenkuchen, Zwetschgendatschi. Mostly they are made from Italian Prune Plums (damson plums), but in this case, I used little “purple cherry plums” — small and very juicy. Tart and sweet, and very delicious.