A taste of summer in winter
Feb 1st, 2010 by Laura Reinsborough
Throughout the winter months, I find oatmeal to be one of the loveliest breakfast dishes. It’s warm, hearty, and delicious. The greatest pleasure of this winter morning meal is to add a few tastes of summer into the mix.
When the first summer pears were ready last year, I set some aside to make into pear sauce. I didn’t add any sugar as they were sweet enough on their own, but I did throw in a little bit of cinnamon and ginger to spice up the flavour. Then, taking a cue from a friend who made her own pear pucks, I froze the sauce in ice cube trays. This makes individual portions that are perfect for dropping in oatmeal. Once they’re frozen, I transfer them to freezer bags so that I can have my ice trays back.
The other taste of summer I have stored away in my freezer is serviceberries. Harvested from my recently-planted frontyard tree, these little berries (similar in size and shape to blueberries) freeze really well. Sprinkled atop my oatmeal, they add a nice fruity flavour and a splash of colour.
The final touch in preparing my morning oatmeal is to add some maple syrup. This year it’s stuff I bought at the grocery store but with the launch of our latest program, who knows what I’ll be using next year?
I also froze some pear sauce directly in freezer bags so that I could use medium-sized portions for baking. Lately I’ve been using them to make jae steele’s oatmeal raisin muffins (minus the raisins, but with lots of other goodies that I’ve found in the cupboard).
We’ve been enjoying our preserves from last summer too. I just opened a jar of apricot jam (apricots picked from Christie and Davenport), there were canned Ontario peaches for breakfast, and I made some pastry for an apple pie later this week (apples picked in Riverdale).
I was on a wonderful pear pick in early Sept that yeilded me about 20 lbs of pears. I made 5 dozen batches of Pear muffins and a few loaves of pear bread. I bring a few muffins out every few weeks and have served the bread as desert for company. Each time I can have a new conversation about Not Far From the Tree.