A Feast of Fridays: Fresh Fruit Habanero

There are only a few days of summer left, so I’m busy creating as many “summerish” foods as possible for my family, which is in total denial about summer’s end. (September 22 is the first day of Autumn!)

So, today I opened the freezer and got out a large freezer bag of blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and peach slices. Yes, we did a lot of berry-picking this summer, and the local orchard had a bumper crop of peaches! The freezer is full of summery delights.

I put all the frozen berries in a large glass bowl, added a jar of mandarin oranges, and emptied a jar of Texas Mandarin Orange Habanero Pepper Jelly into it. The pepper jelly froze when it was mixed with the frozen fruit, but as I let the bowl sit out and thaw, the pepper jelly sort of melted into the fruit, saturating each berry and slice with mandarin orange habanero goodness.

Served in little bowls, with a dollop of whipped cream on top, this is a dessert or snack fit for a king. And at the end of a long difficult hot day, it’s perfection, and a reminder of hot mid-summer days in the berry fields and peach orchards.

We had hard work for dessert. And nobody knows about the two servings I hid behind the lettuce in the crisper drawer. Tomorrow night, I’m feasting on it again!