Fall's Bounty

One of the perks about living the the Bay Area is definitely the weather. Along with the nice weather, one could easily grow a lot of fruits and vegetables in their backyard with very little care. Take my brother's (Alan) house for example, when he got the house last year, the backyard already have an apple tree and a plum tree. My parent then went overboard and planted all sorts of other fruit trees around. Some will probably take a bit longer to get a decent crop out of them (I'm waiting the pink lemons and blood oranges!). But in the meantime, we are enjoying the apples and figs that are in season right now (especially since my brother's family don't eat figs.)

So what other ways to use them besides eating them straight? I tried an easy apple walnut muffin recipe from The New Joy of Cooking and it was great for breakfast this week.

The figs are really ripe, so I don't really want to cook it. I ended up making a sandwich with puff pastry, cream cheese, and figs (with a bit of honey drizzle over the figs). That was just the right balance of textures with the crunchy puff pastry and creamy, soft filling. Not to mention the fact that it was a quick, easy dessert to make last minute with premade frozen puff pastry on hand. I still have quite a bit of apples left though, since I only used 3 apples in the muffin recipe. Maybe I'll try a apple tart next...