There was just enough of a breeze to keep us cool and comfortable. Six of us sat around the table on a backyard deck enjoying dinner together last night. Sipping white sangria and eating a meal made of stone fruits. Our hostess had thrown out a challenge for us. Each guest was to bring any dish that included stone fruit in the ingredient list.
My first thought was that we'd wind up with a bunch of desserts like peach crisp, plum tart, cherry pie. What is stone fruit? A stone fruit has a pit in the middle, surrounding a seed. Most well known stone fruits include peaches, plums, nectarines, cherries and apricots. But olives, almonds, mangoes and even dates are technically part of the stone fruit family.
Our entree turned out to be BLATs, sandwiches made of crispy bacon, fresh lettuce, slices of creamy avocado, thick rounds of tomato layered on bread that had been brushed with oil and toasted on just one side in the oven.
With our sandwiches, we had Grilled Stone Fruit Antipasto Plate, a pile of sweet grilled peaches, nectarines, plums and apricots in a heavenly sauce. We commented on how good this warm fruit would be as a topping for a hot bowl of oatmeal or mixed with plain yogurt and homemade granola for breakfast. And with a little dollop of freshly whipped cream, oh what a dessert it would be.
White Sangria was so easy to drink all evening long. This is a beverage just perfect to serve with dinner on the deck on a warm summer evening. It's much lighter than sangria made with red wine. It's totally refreshing. Our hostess made sure our glasses were always filled with the fruit-filled wine drink.
This is her recipe for White Sangria:
1/4 cup triple sec
1/4 cup sugar
1 (750 ML) bottle pinot grigio
1 lemon, sliced thin
1 cup frozen peach slices
1 cup frozen raspberries
2 cups Sierra Mist soda
Mix triple sec and sugar in large pitcher. Add wine and mix well. Cover and refrigerate. At serving time, add fruit and stir. Slowly pour in Sierra Mist soda and gently stir. Serve each glass of sangria with some of the fruit from the pitcher.
And finally, for dessert, our hostess grilled sugared nectarine halves on a piece of aluminum foil and served the warm fruit over little scoops of premium vanilla ice cream. And did you notice those cookies lined up on a plate behind the Grilled Stone Fruit Antipasto Plate? Those are the Chocolate Cherry Oatmeal Cookies that we ate with our ice cream and nectarines. The recipe came from "Big Fat Cookies," by Elinor Klivans. They're simply irresistible.
Stone fruit. Summer evening. Friends. White Sangria. What a perfect combination.
Sue Doeden is a popular cooking instructor, food writer and integrative nutrition health coach. She is the host of Good Food, Good Life 365 on Lakeland Public Television. Her own hives full of hardworking bees and her love of honey led to the creation of her recently published cookbook, Homemade with Honey.