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Food for Thought Friday: what to do with smushed 🍓/too much/overripe fruit 🍑
 

Helloooooooo from my new front porch!

It’s been HOT this week in Pittsburgh (PA), which I am SO not used to, coming from always-65 SF! Wow, now I really understand not wanting to turn on the oven or otherwise heat up the kitchen in the summer - it’s just too much when it’s already 95 F degrees outside. The heat has been making me extra lazy, so today I have a lazy summer cooking offering/solution for you:

Question: What can you do with smushed / too much / overripe / not-sweet-enough fruit?!

Answer: Throw it in the Instant Pot (or slow-cooker, or a low-heat pot) and make a lazy fruit compote!

My husband can annihilate fruit, so we now have to get at least 1.5x the amount of fruit I used to buy when I was single. Last week, in a bout of excitement, I ordered 3 quarts of strawberries from my new CSA. They were extremely delicate, so by the time I got them home, they were thoroughly smushed, and upon tasting them we also discovered that they weren’t very tasty - neither sweet nor flavorful :(.

Side tip on option 1 for salvaging smushed berries:
Normally it’s always best to only wash berries right before you eat them (because wet berries touching each other in the fridge go bad more quickly.) But if/when I do end up with smushed berries, my first attempt to salvage them is to:
    1. wash berries gently in a colander
    2. spread them out on top of a dry towel-lined baking sheet.
    3. *If I have time, I’ll let this dry on the counter for a bit before moving to the fridge, but if I don’t have time…
    4. Cover berries with another dry towel on top, and then store in the fridge (carefully stacked on top of other things).

Even though this^ method allowed most of the berries to last the week, neither of us were very motivated to eat them, so on Monday, I knew I really needed to use them up! I had also gotten some rhubarb, so I quickly chopped that up, de-stemmed the berries and threw it all in the Instant Pot. I added a tiny bit of water, a dash of cinnamon and a pinch of salt, then put it on slow cook for 3 hours and promptly forgot about it.

When I came back to the kitchen, it was soft and smelled awesome. I stirred in some honey to taste, and voila! Amazing fruit compote / sauce that will last another 1-2 weeks in the fridge, or can easily go in the freezer for later! Delicious on toast with almond butter, atop yogurt or ice cream, topped with nuts or granola, or simply eaten plain with a spoon.

Strawberries + rhubarb is probably my favorite fruit combo in the whole world, and peaches + berries is a close second. This slow-cook fruit compote method works awesome with any/all of these! You can do it with really any combo of stone fruits, berries, apples/pears - essentially any fruits you’d put into a pie could be made into a lazy/easy compote like this.

Depending on how sweet the fruit is, you can add more or less sugar. Normally I’d add the sugar while it’s cooking, but in this case honey was the only sweetener I had - and since honey can burn easily, I decided to add it after (which worked totally fine)!

This method is great when you have too much fruit, or if you have damaged/bruised/overripe fruit and need to use it up quickly. Make sure you cut off any moldy/bad parts, but otherwise - if just bruised, you can be pretty liberal about throwing it all in the pot!

Easy/Intuitive Guide to Slow-Cooker Fruit Compote:
by Garlic Press Jess

This is written as a guide because I never measure and I'm pretty sure you can't mess this up!

Ingredients:
  • I recommend at least 1lb of fruit total; suggested combos but really any combo works! -  
    • strawberries + rhubarb
    • peaches + berries
    • apples or pears + berries
    • a combo of berries
  • sugar or another sweetener to taste
  • spices (optional) - whole or powdered, I like cinnamon / cardamon / nutmeg
  • a little bit of water if you want it more saucy
  • tiny pinch of salt

Instructions:
  1. Wash the fruit.
  2. Trim the tops and/or ends, or de-pit, depending what fruit you're using. If using stone fruit, I would personally leave the skin on and cut into slices/chunks as described here.
  3. You can leave berries whole - they'll get cooked down!
  4. Add all fruit to the pot. Add a few spoonfuls of sugar/sweetener to taste, any spices if you like, and a tiny pinch of salt. (You can also wait and sweeten at the end if you prefer.)
  5. Slow Cooker or Instant Pot instructions (recommended for setting and forgetting!): Place on slow-cook for 2-4 hours with the lid off. If using a large amount of fruit, add about an inch of water at the bottom. If not, you can skip the water or just add a tiny bit. You can set it and forget it, or check periodically if you want to get a sense of how long it will take, and then how much you want to thicken it.
  6. Stovetop instructions: Use a saucepot, ie, a pot with high sides. Add about an inch of water at the bottom of the pot so it doesn't burn. Cook on low/simmer for 30 mins-1.5 hours until the fruit is softened.
  7. Once the fruit has softened, taste and adjust the sugar - you may need more. If the sauce is too liquidy, you can continue to cook it down to thicken it up, though it will also thicken a bit once you put it in the fridge overnight.
  8. Serve with yogurt/granola/toasted nuts, over ice cream, or if it's thick, spread on toast. It's great warm, room temp, or chilled - I eat it all ways! You can also freeze for winter if you prefer!



Happy weekend!

Love,
Jess
All photos are taken by me and recipes written by me, unless otherwise noted.

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Hi, I'm Jess! I help health-conscious, busy people transform their cooking from chore to lifestyle through intuitive cooking, which I teach through online classes, free content, coaching and more. This is my newsletter, Food for Thought Fridays, where I share highly actionable tips and inspiration to help you cook more intuitively (which makes cooking feel easier and SO much more fun!). Once a month, I share a recipe that's really worth making, and I only share those with my email subscribers. Sometimes the text above may include affiliate links, meaning (at no additional cost to you) I get a commission if you click through and make a purchase. This helps me to continue to share free content, so I would love it if you buy through my link! Thank you for supporting Garlic Press Jess!


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