I’m not big on cooked fruit. It’s a failing, I know, but apple pie, crumbles of any kind, baked apples just have a really weird texture to me and I’ve never exactly found a way around it. Here in lies my conundrum; my veggie basket each week contains fruit – fruit that I generally intend to eat raw but then forget about. So … How to use the fruit but get around my texture issue.

My first idea this week was a chutney. Well, that was the idea before I decided I wanted a sauce, but I started with a fruit chutney recipe and just didn’t reduce it so much that it became an actual chutney. So … pears were the base of this and I added sherry vinegar, spices, chili peppers and … Hmmm … I can’t actually remember. But the sauce looked like is as it was cooking.

The end result was pretty good. Bob really liked it over the pork, and I have to say, I didn’t cook the pears so much that the texture was a huge issue for me. It was a little but of an issue, but not a total “I can’t eat this” issue. The pork itself was really good. Pork loin roast that I coated in ground mustard and brown sugar before grilling. It was almost as good as the bacon bread – almost.

After eating out (or take out) most of last week because of the painting project, a nice, light meal was a welcome and tasty change.

Also sitting in the ice box this week were some really cute plums. Now I like plums, but they have to be really ripe and I generally forget about them as I wait for them to ripen enough to eat. After the chutney sauce success, I decided to try a plum sauce to go with some short ribs I picked up the other day. Not wanting the heavy red wine version, I modified a yellow plum sauce recipe and came up with today’s experiment.

Plums, white balsamic vinegar, onion, a little water, brown sugar, ginger, chili pepper, and salt. Bring to a boil them let simmer until the plums break down. This did take a little longer than I expected, and then I was impatient and didn’t want to wait for it to reduce and thicken. But the result was still really good.

I added the sauce to the short ribs that I had I’m the slow cooker all day

and then made a side dish of glazed turnips and carrots. Note – the only other time I have ever eaten (knowingly) turnips was a timbal I made last fall that was not nearly as successful as the squash one. This is the long way of saying I had no idea if I would like them at all, but they were in the basket and my goal this week was to use everything from the basket. So … baby carrots and two turnips (cut into chunks) a little veggie broth and a bit of brown sugar and pinch of salt. Cook covered over high heat for ten minute, then uncover and stir until most of the liquid evaporates. I didn’t get a sticky glaze, but I did achieve a nice flavor and coating to them.

The overall dish was really, really good. The carrots and turnips went well with the short ribs and the sauce and nothing overpowered anything else. The sauce was the star of the show, but it was a very nice little meal.

And, of course, my quest for excellent brownies continues. I tried another Alton Brown recipe and added some caramel sauce I had left over from a cake.

The results were pretty darn tasty and if Bob isn’t careful I may hide this batch. I did give him a piece … But it may be the only piece he gets.