(10 seconds each to read and are almost that quick to prepare)
By Lisa Messinger
Food and Cooking at Creators Syndicate
It’s an honor to remember those who have fought for our country on Memorial Day. Taking time for community gatherings that do is a privilege, too. The less time and cost that cooking utilizes on important days like these, the better.
We should look for quick ideas that have memorable results for our get-togethers so we can put our energies toward the true meaning of the sacred day.
Temperatures usually begin to rise this time of year. After extremely quick prep, make the temp climb, too, in your oven for a bit as you let your special dish cook while you spend time marking the meaning of the holiday.
Roasted fruit fits this bill. Though fruit is always wonderful at room temperature or chilled; and grilling can add a smokiness, less known, simple and the most intensely flavored of all is a roast. Roasting occurs at high temperatures --- usually 400 F and above with memorable results.
Roasting makes almost all fruit even sweeter. The flavor deepens and the fruit often caramelizes.
These are economical ways to be memorable with your cooking, since fruit is often among the most inexpensive choices we can make at the supermarket, as well as farmers’ markets.
Here are some guidelines:
Avoid pitfalls: Pit stone fruit first and slice. Roast any fruit at 400 F. Roast for about 30 minutes, basting occasionally; do not overcook, as volume and texture of fruit can make cooking times vary. Fruit should soften, but not fall apart. It should not burn or blacken (unless roasted with its peel, like bananas, which can be slightly blackened and cooked longer).
Strong Flavor Equals a Strong Choice: Fruit with a strong flavor, like cherries, is good as is, roasted with a touch of honey. It can then top sugar-free ice cream, pound cake or sponge cake (both of which are lower on the glycemic index – which measures sugar reactions in your body – than many other types of cake).
Include Tamer Fruits as Recipe Ingredients: Roasted fruit also can become part and parcel of an imaginative recipe, like peaches roasted with your favorite heartily flavored fresh herbs or spices and used to top bruschetta (Italian toasted bread).
Here are some additional refreshing fruits that are outstanding for roasting, as well as suggested ingredients to top them with while roasting.
- Plums: Grape juice, butter, honey, thyme.
- Nectarines: White wine, butter, sugar, rosemary
- Pineapples: Lemon juice, butter, molasses, candied orange peel
- Raspberries: Cranberry juice, butter, sugar, dark chocolate
- Bananas: Caramel sauce, butter, finely chopped macadamia nuts
Fun fare like this also proves food and beverage preparation can be easy, nutritious, inexpensive, fun – and fast. They take just 10 seconds each to read and are almost that quick to prepare. The creative combinations are delicious proof that everyone has time for creating homemade specialties and, more importantly, the healthy family togetherness that goes along with it!
Another benefit: You effortlessly become a better cook, since there are no right or wrong amounts. These are virtually-can't-go-wrong combinations, so whatever you – or your kidlet helpers – choose to use can't help but draw “wows” from family members and guests.
QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK: Sometimes kitchen products can come in handy and save money in other parts of the house. Bar mop towels, for instance, are usually slightly bigger than washcloths, white, cotton and absorbent. They are often sold in home stores in packs that sometimes equal less than a dollar per towel. At such an economical price, you might be able to treat your skin as a good spa would. For usually less money than investing in washcloths, and more sanitary than reusing the same face towel for days, you could use a fresh bar mop towel (consider washing them a few times first to fully soften) morning and night each day for drying your just-cleansed face. If you sometimes exfoliate or put on a cleansing or healing mask at the same time that you wash your face, you could have enough of a supply on hand to use one fresh towel after another in the same session.
Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food and nutrition writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the National Council Against Health Fraud and author of seven food books, including the best-selling
The Tofu Book: The New American Cuisine with 150 Recipes (Avery/Penguin Putnam) and
Turn Your Supermarket into a Health Food Store: The Brand-Name Guide to Shopping for a Better Diet (Pharos/Scripps Howard). She writes two nationally syndicated food and nutrition columns for Creators Syndicate and had been a longtime newspaper food and health section managing editor, as well as managing editor of Gayot/Gault Millau dining review company. Lisa traveled the globe writing about top chefs for Pulitzer Prize-winning Copley News Service and has written about health and nutrition for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Reader's Digest, Woman's World and Prevention Magazine Health Books. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.
