Prune Plum Danish with Almond Sugar Glaze

Walking into a lovely, sparkling clean patisserie is one of life's greatest pleasures, don't you think? It's as if all the sweetness of life is laid out under glass just waiting for you to take your pick of the choicest, most perfect dream. For me, a layered Danish is always so tempting. The pastry cream that sits as the base to whatever seasonal fruit is at its peak is such a soft and smooth taste treat. Add flaky puff pastry crust and that ubiquitous sugar glaze and it's a sealed deal for me!

Tangy Chinese Plum Sauce

... a bumper crop of plums ...

I know traditional plum sauce is made with red plums, but I have an Italian prune plum tree in my back yard. It was the saddest little tree when we first moved to the grey cottage, leaning pathetically  and constantly attacked by the Japanese beetles during the summer. Eight years later, it still leans slightly, but we've placed a cable around the trunk and 'trained it' to stand up straighter.

Pflaumenkuchen with Almond Streusel

The plums of September are not the plums of August ... no huge round orbs of sweet flesh with tangy after bite. The prune plums of September are small blueish ovals, sweet and fleshy and easy to go soft.

Every autumn, one sees the foragers in Germany gathering these blue prune plums along agricultural paths or off along the walkways of parks. Home they go with their cache to make pans of Pflaumenkuchen for their daily Kaffetrinken. This 'cake' is a soft cross between a coffeecake and a soft bread with a fruit topping (kinda like a pizza, SB, but NOT !)

Plum Galette and Asters ...

Stone fruit galette ... oh, what an easy and elegant way to share the plums that came home from the market this week! This dessert is such a quick bit of work, which is good at this time of year. There are tomatoes to cook down for pizza sauce and cucumbers to pickle, beets to blanch and freeze, potatoes to dig and dust off a bit before storing, squash to chop and freeze, zucchini to shred and bake with, basil to make into pesto and put up in freezer jars. It all seems so endless, and yet we know there is an ending coming. Then, there will be time to put up the feet and bemoan the lack of fresh produce. Right now, though, every spare moment seems to be used for canning, freezing, or stepping out for more pectin, jars, rings and lids, pickling salt, vinegar, or sundry spices.

Pork Chops with Plums and Chinese Spices

 

 

 

Last evening, I made the most delicious pork chop sear that I have ever made ... period. Peace.

 

Plum Danish

 

Rainier Cherry and Plum Clafouti

I almost threw this out. I mean, reallly. Look at this dish of baked ugliness. Think back to other food blog posts that waxed pathetic on the 'ugly food' dilemma. Think back to good recipes in cookbooks that forego a glossy photo of the finished dish. Yes ... there is ugly food in this world. So, in this case, I closed my eyes and took a deep sniff ...

Earlier, my thoughts were centered elsewhere ...