Without a doubt the best purchase I’ve made this summer is our sno cone maker. I keep these great natural fruit concentrates in the fridge and we can just come home, pop a few ice cubes in and voila — an icy, refreshing sweet treat in seconds with no added sugar.

The best part of having the sno cone maker is that we’re not limited to pre-made flavors. A little fresh fruit and simple syrup is all it takes to make our own custom flavors. This watermelon version was fabulous, and oh so simple. I happened to have vanilla simple syrup on hand, you could use any flavored or even herb-infused simple syrup to up the sophistication factor. But if you’re just craving a simple fruity slushie, watermelon and a little sugar are all you need.

Recipe: Watermelon Slushie (or Sno Cone)

Ingredients:

• 4 cups watermelon, cubed
• 1/4 cup simple syrup*
• shaved ice

Instructions: Load watermelon into your blender. Add simple syrup, cover and puree until smooth. Pour into a pitcher and refrigerate until ready to serve. Then, fill a glass or sno cone cup with shaved ice, pour watermelon syrup over and enjoy! Makes about a half quart of syrup.

* To make simple syrup: Combine 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water in a small saucepan. Bring to a gentle boil, whisking to dissolve the sugar. When it begins to boil, remove from heat and let cool. (You can add a vanilla bean half or a handful of basil or mint after removing from heat to add flavor.) Store leftover syrup in the fridge — and use for iced tea, coffee or cocktails.

If you’ve been to a DC-area farmers market lately, I don’t have to tell you peaches are here. After a couple week hiatus, we stopped by the Crystal City Farmers Market last week to stock up on fruit at Kuhn Orchard — but I passed up the peaches and went for apricots, plums, blue and blackberries. I’ll definitely get the peaches this week, but I figured apricots were easier for one-handed eating while holding the baby.

If you’ve already stocked up on peaches and need inspiration, here are a few of my favorite recipes from past years:

• Tomato Peach Panzanella
• Peach Tomatillo Salsa
• Grilled Nectarine & Tomato Salad
• Chesapeake Corn & Peach Crepes
• Peach, Pork & Quinoa Salad
• Amaretto Peach Pound Cake
• Peach Gelato
• Peach Berry Sherbet

If you’ve got a favorite peach recipe, please share it below — or anything else you’ve cooked up lately from the farmers market, CSA or your garden!

Local Potluck Tuesday — a few guidelines:
1. Share a relevant post — a recipe, menu or pictures of a meal featuring local foods, from the farmers market, CSA, farm stand or your own garden — using the MckLinky widget below. In the link title field, enter both your post title and your name &/or blog name, e.g., “Lemon Cucumber Salad — Colleen @ FoodieTots.”

2. Bonus points if you included your kids in picking, growing, purchasing or cooking the ingredients for the meal! (And by bonus points, I mean increased likelihood of seeing your post featured in a future post.)

3. In your post, please link back to this post here at FoodieTots, so your readers can find the potluck and be encouraged to join in as well.  Of course if you don’t have a blog, you’re welcome to share in the comments.

That’s it! I hope you’ll join in and share what you’re cooking up that’s fresh & local to you!

{Editor’s Note: I’m on “maternity leave” for the next couple weeks. Posts are scheduled to keep you satiated (including a whole month of cherry recipes!), but please forgive me if I don’t respond to comments promptly.}

As promised, July is cherry month here at FoodieTots. I know it’s the tail end of the season around DC, but elsewhere they’re just coming into season. While I bought all the Bing and sour pie cherries I could during our too-short season, I never spotted Queen Anne cherries this year — the yellow-red cherries that resemble my favorite West Coast Rainier cherries. But the Bing cherries were nice and sweet this year, and in an effort to use them in as many meals as possible I made this warm cherry apricot compote for Sunday brunch.

Recipe: Cherry Apricot Compote

Ingredients:
1 cup sweet cherries, pitted and halved
4 apricots, diced
1 tablespoon raw honey
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Instructions: Heat a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook apricots until lightly browned on one side. Add remaining ingredients and simmer over low heat until fruit is warmed through and apricots are soft, about 8-10 minutes. Serve warm over Almond French Toast (below) or your favorite pancakes or waffles. Makes 4 servings.

Recipe: Almond French Toast

Ingredients:
8 thick slices of day-old bread
1 tablespoon butter
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of ground nutmeg

Instructions: Whisk eggs in a shallow baking dish (big enough for your bread slices) until light and fluffy. Add milk, extracts and nutmeg and whisk until combined. Melt butter in skillet over medium heat. Dunk slices of bread, one at a time, in the egg mixture, letting soak for a minute or so. Cook for several minutes on each side, until golden. Serve with maple syrup and or/Cherry Apricot Compote. Serves 4. Enjoy!

Farms of Origin: cherries and apricots from Black Rock Orchard (PA) @ Falls Church Farmers Market, milk from South Mountain Creamery (MD), bread from Atwater’s Bakery.

Have you ever wondered why blueberries get all the coffee cake glory? Yeah, they’re good … but cherries are bigger, brighter and perfectly sweet. I’ve been eating too many soulless Starbucks coffee cakes lately and had a craving for a real, homemade crumb cake this past weekend. I remembered reading about Smitten Kitchen’s “Big Crumb Coffee Cake” and decided to start there. I added some whole wheat pastry flour to up the whole grains, and paired nutmeg with my cherries instead of her rhubarb and ginger (not that those wouldn’t be good, but alas rhubarb has already come and gone here). The cherries came from Black Rock Orchard (PA) at the Falls Church Farmers Market.

Recipe: Whole Wheat Cherry Crumb Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s Big Crumb Coffee Cake

For the filling:
1 1/2 cups sweet cherries, pitted
1 tablespoon tapioca starch (or corn starch)

For the crumbs:
2/3 cup organic light brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour

For the cake:
1/3 cup whole milk yogurt
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup demerara sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, softened

Instructions: Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square baking dish.

Toss cherries with tapioca starch and set aside.

To make crumb topping, melt butter in a microwave-safe bowl. Add brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and stir until combined. Fold in flour and set aside.

For the cake batter, whisk together yogurt, egg, egg yolk and vanilla. In the bowl of a mixer, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add butter and mix on medium speed until flour is moistened. Gradually add yogurt/egg mixture and mix until smooth.

Pour the batter into the baking dish. Spread cherries over the batter, then spread crumb mixture evenly over the top. Bake 45-55 minutes, until crumb topping is lightly browned and cake is cooked through. Cool before cutting, and serve with a dusting of powdered sugar. Makes 9 servings. Enjoy!

Traveling to Florida is always a bit perplexing, foodwise. Has anyone else ever wondered how the sunny coast of California inspired smoothies and gourmet vegetarianism, while Florida is perfectly content with chain restaurants and a Dunkin’ Donuts on every corner? Add to that the fact that the state surrounded on three sides with water is a virtual wasteland when it comes to safe, sustainable seafood choices (as per Seafood Watch‘s handy iPhone app), and well, it can be easier to try not to think while eating out. (Gulf shrimp, when you can find them, appear to be the safest choice.) We didn’t even time our trip to catch a weekend farmers market, so a quick stop at a roadside stand promising Plant City strawberries was the extent of our local food foraging (well, aside from taking advantage of my sister’s citrus trees). 

Plant City, Florida, is the winter strawberry capital of the world. While you can find Florida strawberries in supermarkets down here, the ones at the farmstand seemed fresher and juicier — without that telltale white top of berries picked before ripeness.

I picked up a couple quarts and made a pitcher of agua fresca back at the house. This is a fun project with kids, particularly if they’re old enough to safely hull strawberries. (If not, they can take a pass at plucking the stems at least.) Instead of lime juice, I used an orange from one of the trees at my sister’s house — one whose fruit tastes almost like a cross between a lime and an orange.

Recipe: Strawberry Agua Fresca
adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients:

• 6 cups hulled and quartered strawberries
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar (depending on sweetness of the berries)
• 4 cups cold water
• 1/3 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice

Instructions: In a tall pitcher, stir 1/4 cup sugar into the water until dissolved. Place strawberries in blender and blend until smooth. Pour into the pitcher. Stir in the orange juice, taste, and add additional sugar if desired. Chill in refrigerator several hours. Garnish glasses with a small strawberry, and enjoy! Makes 8 cups.

The finished drink was lighter than a smoothie, cool and refreshing, and a big hit with the kids. A sweet end to a day at the beach and a nice taste of things to come as our own berry season is just around the corner.