I’m obsessed with discovering The Perfect Way to serve each fruit that comes into season. It’s ongoing, this obsession of mine. I experiment and tweak, toss, and research. My goal is to have The Perfect Way (or two or three) all figured out for when each fruit hits its peak. That way I’ll be prepared to get the most bang for my buck. Or flavor for my fruit.

I’ve got tomatoes down pat: they belong, completely and totally, in bread pudding. Think it sounds old-fashioned and stodgy? Well, it’s not. With roasted tomatoes and bread cubes and garlic, eggs and cream and Fontina, it’s anything but. In fact, I dare you—no, I double-dog dare you—to make it and tell me I’m wrong.

Other tomato favorites include Oven-Roasted Tomatoes and Valerie’s Salsa, and then there’s a salad I haven’t told you about yet. I’ll get to it, promise. But maybe not till next year. Now don’t panic! If it’s truly good it will stand the test of time. You wouldn’t want to know about it if it didn’t, right?

For nectarines, there’s this tart. I made it with peaches, but I really think it’s best with nectarines—prettier and more flavorful.

Sweet cherries belong in this ice cream. Don’t argue with me about this.

Strawberries go in this pie and in this salad, sour cherries in this crumble, apricots in this cake, rhubarb in this cake, and red raspberries in this pie (or this cake).

Then come plums. I’m still working on them—they don’t frequent my kitchen all that often—but I found a cake that I think might fit the bill.

The recipe comes from Deb. I’ve learned to trust her recipes, and if her recipe, heaven forbid, isn’t exactly right, then there are boatloads of comments that add suggestions and tweaks. Her blog is A Most Excellent Resource.

Anyway, this plum cake came from her. At first I thought it was too simple, nothing outstanding or flashy about it. In fact, Mr. Handsome, bless his dear, ogrish heart, took one bite and said, “It has no flavor.”

“Pooh on you,” I retorted.

But then after a couple pieces he was forced to amend (with no coercion on my part) his earlier statement. “It’s actually pretty good,” he murmured. (And just so you know, the cake has plenty of flavor, in a gentle sort of way.)

As for the kids, they fell on it like piranas (or like their mother had been feeding them weird Indian food all week), and the whole cake disappeared in a flash. So maybe it is flashy after all.

The cake consists of a simple cake batter topped with slices of juicy plum and then sprinkled with a crumb topping. The bottom part tasted part-cake, part-cookie, the fruit was juicy-sweet (and gorgeous, to boot), and the crumb topping was just what crumb toppings are supposed to be—crumbly. You can leave the topping off, if you like, but I liked the additional rich, sugary crunch. You know me.

By the way, fruits that are still haven’t made it into The Perfect Way category include peaches (believe it or not) and blueberries (though I have several strong contenders), so if you have any good leads, please pass them on. I’m on a mission.

Dimply Plum Cake
Adapted from Deb at Smitten Kitchen

5 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
zest of 1 orange
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
4-8 juicy plums, depending on size, halved (and sliced, if large) and pitted
crumb topping (see below for recipe), optional
whipped cream, for serving, optional

Cream together the butter and brown sugar. Add the eggs and beat well. Beat in the oil, zest, and vanilla.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.

Gently beat the dry ingredients into the wet.

Pour the batter into a greased, square 9-inch pan. Arrange the plum halves/slices on top of the batter, cut-side facing up. Sprinkle with the crumb topping and bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes.

Serve warm or at room temperature (with whipped cream and coffee).

Crumb Topping
From Mennonite Country-Style Recipes by Esther H. Shank

A jar of these crumbs were just hanging out in the freezer, waiting to sprinkled. I keep these on hand for crumb pies or the crumb topping for muffins, though truth be told, I don’t make crumb-topped muffins all that often. This recipe will make enough topping for 4 or 5 pies.

3 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 ½ sticks (3/4 cup) butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon, optional

Using your fingers, mix all the ingredients together till sandy-crumbly. Store in jars in the freezer.

This same time, years previous: I’m back and Tomato Bread Pudding

Two nights in a row now, Mr. Handsome and I have been playing tag team. This means that after the supper rush and clean up, I tuck my computer under my arm and hightail it upstairs. First I get shower (make it cold, please) and then I snuggle up in my bed, a mound of pillows behind my back, and get all set to write—except that I procrastinate first. It’s a bad habit. It’s gotten so that I have to procrastinate before I write, kind of like how athletes have to spit on their hands, cross themselves, and tug at their shirt collars before doing whatever it is they do. I don’t spit, cross, or tug—I click and read. But after ten frittering minutes, I’m done, ready to get busy.

Aaaand here I am. Good evening!

I know it’s kind of bad manners to complain about the weather, but because it’s on the forefront of my mind, I’m going to anyway. Yesterday when I went running, I was in a cloud, and not no happiness cloud, neither. It was the real deal cloud—heavy, dark, thick, soggy. The roadside grass was draped with moisture-laden, silvery spider webs like some giantess had scattered a hundred thousand tissues, and the trees plink-plunked water down on my sweaty head. It brought to mind that desert in Peru and how the fog rolls in from the sea and moisture condenses on the cactus and spider webs and the animals go around licking up the droplets and acting like they hit payday. But here in Virginia we don’t lick leaves. Maybe in a couple hundred centuries we’ll evolve into tree-lickers, but not just yet.

Then this afternoon a thunderstorm rumbled to the south-west of us and hovered just over the ridge for a whole, freakin’ two hours. We got wind, we got cool air, we got rain-smell up our parched nostrils, but nothing happened, except that my laundry dried.

In a valiant (but vain) attempt to ignore the rain-laden clouds and rumbling thunder, I made kale chips.

In case you didn’t know, they are all the rage. To make them, just tear some washed, and then dried, kale leaves into pieces, toss them with canola oil, sprinkle with salt, and bake in a 350 oven for about ten minutes. The resulting “chips” were light, crispy, oily, salty, and bitter. The kids spit them out. Mr. Handsome didn’t spit, but he quit after one and doggedly refused to try a second. I ate a bunch, just to make certain I for-sure didn’t like them, but then I gave up pretending to be kale-chip cool and turned the remaining bits over to the chickens.

And then I turned my attention to a salad. A kick-butt salad, if I do say so myself.

In fact, I want to serve this salad at my wedding.

Except I’m already married and have zero plans to change the status quo, so in that case, I’ll have to serve the salad at Miss Beccaboo’s or Sweetsie’s wedding.

That’s right, my girls are just nine and six respectively, and I’m already marrying them off for the sake of some salad. It’s that good.

I’ll admit the ingredient list didn’t make me super confident, mostly because I didn’t know what Asian sweet chili sauce was. The ancient jar of sweet chili sauce that was lounging in my refrigerator door was totally devoid of any Asian characteristics whatsoever, but I decided to give it a go anyhow. A bunch of minced ginger, several tablespoons of rice vinegar, a shake of salt and grind of pepper, and the dressing was done. My case of the queasy qualms was not squelched.

But then, then I peeled, sliced, and drizzled and the resulting assemblage was so lovely that I got goosebumps just looking at it. And each jazzy fork full? Oh my. It was the Hallelujah Chorus and La Macarena combined! (That’s not sacrilegious, is it?) Spicy-sweet, meaty, fruity, smooth, crunchy…delicious in the most fashionable way possible.

I’m gushing, aren’t I. Sorry.

I’ll just say this yet: after eating my salad, I hopped up to make a fresh plate for the camera, which Mr. Handsome and I then split in half, wolfed down, and that was that.

The floodgates are now officially closed. Goodnight.

Shrimp, Mango, and Avocado Salad
Adapted (mostly because I don’t want to type out the rest of the title which would be “with Sweet Chili-Ginger Vinaigrette” even though that probably makes the salad sound more unctuous, but really, leaving out part of the title doesn’t make it any less tasty, just so you know) from the August 2010 issue of Bon Appetit

I only used about half of the dressing, so either save the leftovers for another salad, or double the other ingredients, or just chuck it.

My shrimp were frozen, unpeeled, and raw. To bring them up to speed, I half-thawed them under some cold water, heated a pot of water to boiling, tossed in the unpeeled shrimp for three minutes, scooped them into some ice water, peeled them, and that was it.

½ cup Asian sweet chili sauce (perhaps something like this?)
2-3 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar
1 ample tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
pinch of salt
grind of black pepper
8 ounces cooked, peeled shrimp (the equivalent of 12 large shrimpies)
5 ounces of mixed greens
1 juicy mango, peeled and sliced
1 avocado, peeled, pitted, and sliced

Whisk together the first five ingredients. Toss three tablespoons of the dressing with the shrimp and set aside.

Makes either 4 side servings or 2 main course servings. To assemble, set out however many plates you’re using and divide the ingredients between them—first the greens, then the avocado and mango slices, then the saucy shrimp. Lightly drizzle some of the remaining dressing over the salads (a little goes a long way, so exercise restraint).

This same time, years previous: Experimenting (and suffering for it) and Summertime Pizza

I’m soooo ready for summer to be over already. I want to start fresh with a brand-spanking-new summer, now.

We had that drought and it was so bad that Virginia declared a state of emergency for our county. So I’m not making it up when I say things were bad. They were.

And then it rained. It rained three nice, heavy downpours, to be exact (more or less). Things started greening up. We were lighthearted and carefree. The kids even got to use the sprinkler since we didn’t have to be so scrooge-y with our well water.

And then it stopped raining and began browning down, big time. I’m peeved with this turn of events. Seriously peeved.

We aren’t getting hardly anything from our garden. Think 28 tomato plants are a lot? Yes? Well, I did, too. But we’re getting such a piddly-little amount that I’ve had to outline a plan of action: salsa first, canned tomatoes second, and pizza sauce third. I doubt I’ll get to the third.

The corn is thigh-high and bearing skinny little sticks of nothing.

Carrots? Bitter.

Cukes? Bitter, and then dead.

Zucchinis? Small, wormy, wilted, dead.

Chard? Eaten. (By bugs.)

Beets? Small, puny, eaten. (By me. In one sitting.)

Green beans? Twenty-six quarts from a whole stinkin’ pound of seed.

Red Raspberries? Dry, small, bug-infested, rotten.

I was thinking of doing a fall crop of green beans as that’s our major winter vegetable, but seeing as it’s so dry, it’d be pointless.

I’m trying to stay positive. This winter I have the marvelous opportunity to use up everything in my freezers and on my canning shelves! There’s still some corn, tomatoes, pickles, red beets, and a few jars of green beans, and once I use it all up, I’ll have an excuse to buy green veggies in winter!

Yay me.

My disgust, irritation, and frustration—or, my irrifrustugation—is really not that big of a deal, all things considered. We have an abundance of food despite the few shortages, plus lots of money to buy whatever we want to eat. In fact, just the other day I was wailing happily about all the good food there is to eat and too little time to do it in. I get in a tizzy over the silliest things.

That very evening I had a meeting at church. It was the same night that our church’s fellowship hall and kitchen get transformed into a food pantry. When I walked in the door, the hall was lined with people waiting their turn to get their brown bags of day-old bread, dried beans, and tins of fruit. The line stretched the whole way to the end of the hall and up the steps. As I stepped over and around people to climb the stairs to our meeting room, I was struck by the irony of my too-much-food complaint—whining about my good fortune! the nerve!—and the realization that, on the turn of a dime, it could be me waiting in some airless church hallway for some free food. Not that this one dry summer is That Dime, of course, but, when it comes right down to it, there really isn’t much dividing me from them.

There’s no great lesson here. I’m still peeved at the cloudless sky, still overwhelmed by all my fun cooking projects, still ready for a summer redo. But the fresh perspective was momentarily profound. End of story.

Now, for a recipe. I have so many up my sleeve. The hard part is deciding which to write about, but seeing as I’m an immediate person, I’ll go with what we had for dinner tonight.

It’s both a winter dish (uses the oven, rice and legumes) and a summer dish (fresh mint, cilantro, green chili). But considering that it’s Indian (kick alert!) and India is a hot country, I’d say it fits into this hot, dry summer just about perfect.

Indian Pilaf of Rice and Split Peas
Adapted from A Taste of India by Madhur Jaffrey

This dish is both light and filling, slightly spicy from the chili, nutty from the split peas, and sweet from the caramelized onions. I can’t get enough of it and am already looking forward to feasting on the leftovers.

Although I found it fairly mild, my kids fussed about the heat. (It wasn’t too hot, technically speaking, so I was able to enforce the eat-it-or-no-dessert rule.) Even so, if making this with hopes of pleasing the little ones, I suggest omitting the green chili and using black pepper in place of the cayenne.

The onion was my favorite part; I’ll double it the next time around.

½ cup yellow split peas
2 cups Basmati rice
½ teaspoon turmeric, divided
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large onion, peeled, halved, and sliced into thin half rings
2 teaspoons minced, fresh ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
5 tablespoons plain yogurt, divided
1 tablespoon and ½ teaspoon salt, divided
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
1 green chili (I used a jalapeno), minced
½ teaspoon garam masala

The Soaking Part:
Pick over the split peas and then wash them in several changes of water. Let them soak in enough water to cover them by 3 inches for 1 ½ hours.

Wash the rice several times till the water runs clear. Let it soak in enough water to cover it by an inch for 30 minutes. Drain.

The Pre-cooking Part:
Put the split peas in their soaking water in a saucepan, add 1/4 teaspoon turmeric and simmer on the stove, leaving the lid slightly ajar, for about 30 minutes, or until the peas are tender but not mushy. Drain.

Bring 12 cups of water to boil in a large kettle. Add 1 tablespoon salt. Add the drained rice and boil for 3-5 minutes, or until the rice is 3/4 of the way cooked (but still has a slim, hard, inner core). Drain.

The Actual Cooking Part:
Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat. Have a lid nearby in case of splatters (par for the course with Indian food, I’m learning—can’t really expect anything different when you add yogurt to hot oil). Add the onions and stir gently till they are dark brown and crispy. Scoop the onions out of the oil and set aside.

Reduce the heat to medium and add the ginger and garlic. Stir briefly. When they are light brown, add 1 tablespoon of yogurt and 1/4 teaspoon turmeric and stir. The liquid will evaporate and the yogurt will curdle a bit (no worries). Add the remaining 4 tablespoons of yogurt, a spoonful at a time, stirring in between additions. Add the drained split peas, the salt, and the cayenne pepper. Cook for one minute. Remove from the heat.

The Assembling Part:
Put half of the rice in the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan. Layer on the split pea mixture. Top with the remaining rice. Drizzle the butter, lemon juice, and milk over the pilaf. Sprinkle with the mint and cilantro and garam masala. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

The Eating Part:
All by its lonesome or with a cucumber-tomato-onion salad or with green peas or with a lettuce salad or with a meat or with a yogurt chutney or, or, or—the options are endless and delicious.

Yield: 6 servings

This same time, years previous: Chocolate Beet Cake