Gingered Fruit Salad

You might be thinking “what do I need a fruit salad recipe for?” Well let me tell you, you need this one. My cousin brought this to our family Christmas celebration a few years ago and it was delicious. I couldn’t figure out what made the fruit taste so delicious, but now I know, it’s the crystallized ginger. It really wakes up the fruit and makes it taste so much brighter and delicious! I know I ask you to do this a lot, but trust me! The fresh lime juice and ginger really make this fruit taste so much better than you ever thought it could. You could really use any type of fruit, but these make a very pretty salad. I forgot about the pomegranate so my picture doesn’t show it, but it really adds a nice touch. Let’s make it:

Combine 1/4 cup sugar, 2 Tablespoons lime juice, 2 Tablespoons ginger ale and 1 tsp. grated lime zest and reserve.

Mix in a pretty glass bowl:

4 cups cubed fresh pineapple, cubed

3 cups strawberries (quartered)

3 kiwis (peeled, halved lengthwise, sliced)

1 cup raspberries

1 cup blueberries

1 cup pomegranate seeds

1 cup blackberries

3 Tablespoons chopped crystallized ginger

Pour lime juice mixture over fruit and toss a bit. Serve cold and enjoy!

This recipe was from my cousin, Karen Jetton, who passed away this year. I've been saving an email from her with this recipe from 2006 so I think she'd probably be happy I finally made it......and that I gave her credit!

Roasted Tomato Caprese Salad

My hubby gave me one of the Barefoot Contessa’s cookbooks for our 15th anniversary earlier this month. Don’t worry, I actually wanted it and he gave me a few more gifts so it was fine. I immediately flipped through it looking for recipes and found this one. I was having a party that next weekend so it was perfect timing!  You’ll learn a few things about my strange food issues on this blog, but I’ll try to hide most of them from you. One small one is that I LOVE tomatoes.....well, I love them in every form except their raw state. You can stew ‘em, you can fry ‘em, you can squeeze ‘em into a ketchup bottle or cook ‘em up in sauce and I’ll love them, but raw, not so much. I’ve always thought a caprese salad was so pretty, but could never eat it because of the icky raw tomatoes. Well, the Barefoot Contessa practically saved my life with this recipe! A caprese salad with COOKED tomatoes! How awesome is that?? VERY, that’s how awesome! I couldn’t wait to make it and share it on my blog so here’s the recipe.


Ingredients:

12 plum or roma tomatoes, halved lengthwise, seeds (not cores) removed

1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for drizzling

1 1/2 T balsamic vinegar

2 large garlic cloves, minced

2 t sugar (I didn’t used all of it and just lightly sprinkled)

1 1/2 t salt 

1/2 t fresh ground pepper

16 ounces fresh mozzarella

12 fresh basil leaves, julienned

Directions:
Preheat oven to 275 degrees.

Arrange tomatoes on a sheet pan, cute sides up, in a single layer (as shown). Drizzle with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle with the garlic, sugar, salt and pepper.  Roast for 2 hours until the tomatoes are concentrated and begin to caramelize. All tomatoes to cool to room temperature.

Okay, so here’s the scoop on the tomatoes.....one of my dear friends, the Barefoot Contessa, told me about this recipe, but I’m pretty sure you could cook these tomatoes in less time. She has a recipe for roasted tomatoes which is VERY similar, however they are cooked at 450 for 25-30 minutes. I’m pretty sure that would work too. I haven’t tried it yet, but I will and come back and update this recipe.

Cut the mozzarella into slices slightly less than 1/2 inch thick. If the slices of mozzarella are larger than the tomatoes, cut the mozzarella slices in half. Layer the tomatoes alternately with the mozzarella slices on a platter and scatter the basil on top. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper and drizzle lightly with olive oil. Serve at room temperature.

These were gobbled up at my party! Everyone loved them. Such a pretty presentation and quite tasty to boot.

Enjoy!