Author Notes
A combination of fruit and nuts that goes great warm or cold by itself or paired up with vanilla ice cream.
Remember last year when I bragged about being in a TV cooking show? It finally aired this May! If you missed seeing it, you're in luck - I recorded it. Why are you in luck? It's because I'm giving you something to laugh about. I'm exposing my flaws for everybody to see. There's no Photoshop and no dubbing - what you see is what you get - my oily skin, my wild hair and my thick accent. Yes, all that's Jas. Oh, and I say yes a lot. Drinking at 9 am? Just look at my face when I take a sip of the Bosnian plum brandy, ha!
All this aside, I am happy I had this opportunity. I have something to leave my grandkids to remember me by and to know that no matter where you come from or how old you are if you have a dream strive to achieve it.
From the bookshelves to the kitchen, the show Dinner and a Book hosted by lovely Gail Martin is like a book club joined with a related meal. Each episode features a different book and a different guest. I am so honored that Gail invited me to be her guest. We talked about book by Aleksandar Hemon, The Book of My Lives. Hemon is a Bosnian American fiction writer and we are about the same age. This book is nonfiction and written as a series of personal essays.
The dishes we prepared are typical Bosnian dishes: roux soup, spinach and cheese pie (also mentioned in the book), Sopska salad and for desert, baked fruit.
—Jas
Ingredients
- mixed ripe fruit
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1-2
peaches or nectarines
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1
large pear
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4-5
Italian prune plums (or 2 regular black plums)
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4-5
fresh figs
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1 cup
blueberries
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juice of 1/2 lemon
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1 tablespoon
sugar
- topping
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2 tablespoons
butter
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3 tablespoons
honey
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1 tablespoon
vanilla sugar (or regular sugar + 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
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3 tablespoons
pistachio, chopped
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3 tablespoons
walnuts, chopped
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2 tablespoons
pine nuts, or chopped hazelnuts
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1 teaspoon
cinnamon
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1-2
hole cloves (optional)
Directions
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Preheat oven to 350 F. Wash the fruit, remove pits and cut into halves or quarters. Score an x into figs. Place the fruit on an 8” baking dish arranging plums and figs upright. Sprinkle with lemon juice and sugar if the fruit is not quite ripe. Add cloves and bake for 10-15 minutes.
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Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add honey, cinnamon and nutmeg. Lower the heat and simmer, stirring until the sauce thickens into caramel consistency. Pour over baked fruit, top with nuts and vanilla sugar and bake additional 5 minutes.
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Serve warm over ice cream or alone.
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