Creamy Summer Fruit Salad

I love making this deliciously creamy fruit salad when I have leftover fresh or canned fruit in the fridge that you don't know what to do with. A sinful delight on a hot summer night. Oh hey. I 'm a poet and didn't knowit. (lame, I know.)
But can it really be THAAAT bad with wonderful fruit in it? ;)

I used fresh blueberries, fresh chopped leftover  plums, and some leftover canned peaches (drained), but you can use any combo of fruit you like.

Just make sure all fruit is drained (juice reserved) and frozen is thawed and drained, or you will have a runny dessert. Also, the marshmallows are optional. I like to add them for a little fun color for the kids.
On to the recipe!

• 1 cup acini di pepe pasta
• 1 cup chopped canned peaches, drained, reserving liquid
• 1 cup blueberries, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup chopped tart plums, drained if they have been sitting chopped in the fridge, and juice reserved
• 1 1/2 cups of fruit juice from the fruit. Use water or another light colored fruit juice to equal 1 1/2 cups if you don't have enough juice.
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• pinch salt
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• one recipe of Homemade Whipped Cream (recipe below)
• 2 handfuls mini multi-colored marshmallows
• optional: walnuts for a little added crunch

Fill a medium saucepan 3/4 the way with water, add a pinch of salt, and bring to a boil. 
Add pasta and cook, stirring occasionally until almost done; al dente. About 7-10 minutes.
Drain and set aside. Do not rinse.

In a separate medium saucepan, whisk reserved liquids from the fruit, or another juice or water to equal 1 1/2 cups of liquid, sugar, vanilla, beaten eggs, salt and flour. Whisk briskly  and cook until mixture becomes very thick. Remove from heat.
Combine with pasta, cover and refrigerate 8 hours or overnight.

Add in fruit and marshmallows; Fold in whipped cream, Chill! Garnish with walnuts, if desired, and enjoy..!

Homemade Whipped Cream

• 1/2 pint whipping cream
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar

In a deep, chilled glass bowl (chill metal mixer beaters too, if possible), on medium-high speed, beat cream with vanilla.  When cream starts to thicken, slowly add the powdered sugar, continuing to beat until stiff peaks form in cream.  Fold into acini and fruit! :)

Plum Blueberry Dessert Bread

A moist and tender bread that doesn't even need butter. Good luck waiting until it's fully cooled to dig in. haha!
Cooking time: about an hour
Makes one loaf.

Enough torture! On with the recipe!

• 1 1/2 cups peeled, chopped plums (dip in boiling water for a few seconds to a minute or two, scoop out and dip into ice water and the peels will practically slip off.)
• about 1/2 cup fresh blueberries, room temp
• 1 heaping tablespoon flour

• 1/2 cup margarine, room temp
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla 
• 2 eggs, room temp

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/3 cup plain yogurt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• a pinch of fresh grated nutmeg 

• powdered sugar for dusting

• optional: a topping of 1/4 cup brown sugar and a couple tablespoons of chopped walnuts might be good for those who like toppings and nuts. I don't, so I didn't. And the batter was so good I didn't want to muck with it. LOL

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Toss chopped plums with the heaping tablespoon of flour in a bowl and set aside.

In a medium glass bowl, sift remaining flour with salt and baking soda. I do this by putting a metal mesh strainer over a bowl, put the measured out ingredients in the strainer and, holding the strainer over the bowl, tap the edge of the strainer until all is sifted into the glass bowl below it.

 Like this. I was making cornbread, but using this pic to show you how I "sift together ingredients."
Set aside dry ingredients.

In a large glass bowl, beat the margarine, sugar and vanilla until pale yellow, light and fluffy.
Beat in eggs one at a time and beat until fairly smooth.

Just after adding first egg..

mmmm smooth, pale yellow, soft peaks starting to form..
Now beat in about half the dry ingredients, then about half the yogurt, then the rest of the dry and the rest of the yogurt. Beat until just mixed in, scraping sides of bowl. You should have a nice, smooth batter.

Gently fold in the plums and blueberries and pour into a greased (I use the spray) loaf pan, add toppings if you desire, and bake at 350.

For about 45-55 minutes. If the top is getting too dark too soon, loosely foil the top. 
Toothpick may not come out completely dry when it's done. The top will be golden and shiny, and the toothpick almost dry.  Let it cool in the pan.

Beware: if you're like me and just can't resist beyond 6 or 7 minutes, the bottom of the loaf may tear from the top when you go to slice a piece out of the pan. heee.. Oh, dust with some powdered sugar after it's cooled a bit.

Later, after dinner, it was still moist and was so perfect warmed up with some ice cream and some of my blueberry sauce on top.

ooooo...but you KNOW after I took that pic, that just wasn't enough blueberry sauce for me. ppffft!

now thaaaat's more like it. YUM!

Blueberry Sauce

I love using this sauce for a syrup, ice cream topping, in oatmeal, smoothies, anything you don't mind turning that lovely purple. :)
This is a rough recipe. Adjust more or less cornstarch and sugar to your liking of sauce consistency and sweetness. I like mine fairly sweet.  Just remember it'll thicken up a lot when it cools and in the fridge. I like to put the stored sauce in the microwave and warm it up before topping my ice cream. OH YUM!

It was still hot and thin when I took this pic. I couldn't wait any longer! haha!
On to the recipe! It's so easy it's almost a non-recipe!

• about 1 quart 3 cups of fresh blueberries.  I forgot to measure them. haha..sorry. But it was a little over half a 2 quart box from the farmer's market.  Next time I'll measure exact and edit this for you. Or I'll try. I'm always tossing in a couple extra--just for good measure. Really.
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup of water (or less if you want more berries and less sauce. I love extra saucey berries.)
• 2 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons water

 In a medium saucepan, start to warm your berries and sugar over med-low heat; stirring occasionally.

mm..much to my dentist's horror, I could eat them just like this.
So, babysit the berries, stirring more often as the berries and sugar come together.
After about 4-5 minutes or so, the sugar will have melted and the berries poppin' and juicin', and coming to a simmer. If they're getting too rowdy in the pan, turn the heat down a little so they don't burn.

hm. You can't really tell in this picture, but it was simmering. Trust. I can almost smell them.
Add the water, melt the cornstarch in the 2 tablespoons of water and add, while stirring, to the berries.

Keep stirring. Turn the heat back up a little if they're simmering too slow. You want a nice, healthy simmer unless you don't mind waiting longer for your warm ice cream topping.  I didn't think so. :)

After the cornstarch, the sauce will be a little cloudy, but don't worry! It'll clear up in a minute or two.

Add more sugar at this point, if you like.

Try to resist adding too much cornstarch and water because it'll thicken up as it cools and after a night in the fridge, if you put too much in, it'll be like a blueberry jam. Which isn't bad either. Just put on toast or warm in microwave for a topping.  :))

Simmer for about 10 minutes, then take off the heat and cool, stirring occasionally!
That's it!