Good morning!

How’s everybody doing today? I cannot wait to share my Recipe of the Week with you this morning because it was so flippin’ delicious. I made it over the weekend and it’s likely going to be dinner again tonight! So without any further delay, let’s get right to it!

1. Recipe of the Week: One of my favourite things about living in Ontario is the fresh locally-grown produce, especially in the summer. When I lived in the Middle East, almost everything was imported and I don’t even want to think about what sort of sprays coated the produce to keep it from ripening too fast or too slowly in transit. I’ve been on a big stone fruit kick lately (exhibit A: Quinoa and Apricot Pilaf) and in my effort to eat the rainbow this month, I picked up a box of Ontario-grown yellow plums.

How cute are they?!

These plums are a little smaller than the average red or purple kind, but it makes them great for….

Skewering! And grilling with chicken. Or with anything really. Just make sure you chop up your choice of meat into small bits because the plums cook very, very quickly on the grill. There were a few halves that slipped off the skewers, but I managed to save them from falling through the grates of my barbeque into a hot coaly demise.

The final product, Grilled Rosemary Plum and Chicken Kabobs, was a thing of beauty.

The plums were just ripe when I made this meal, which helped them to stay on the skewers (for the most part). When they came off the grill, they were tart and juicy, and paired amazingly well with the chicken. I hope you enjoy these kabobs as much as I did!

2. Golden raspberries. Nope, these aren’t just regular raspberries that aren’t ripe yet. They’re golden, and they’re delicious!

I found my golden raspberries at a local specialty grocery store (Fiddleheads/ David’s Gourmet for anyone in the area) and like the plums, these are Ontario-grown too.

I thought raspberries were a pretty simple fruit, but it turns out that there are about 15 different species! Who knew?! So what makes these ones paler than their more common red counterparts? According to Wikipedia:

Both the red and the black raspberry species have albino-like pale-yellow natural or horticultural variants resulting from presence of recessive genes that impede production of anthocyanin pigments. Fruits from such plants are called golden raspberries or yellow raspberries; despite their similar appearance, they retain the distinctive flavour of their respective species (red or black). Most pale-fruited raspberries commercially sold in the eastern United States are derivatives of red raspberries. Yellow-fruited variants of the black raspberry are sometimes grown in home gardens.

There was no way that I was messing with these berries by cooking them or mixing them with too many other ingredients, so I layered up a little parfait for dessert last night with some Greek yogurt and plenty of berries.

They did taste a lot like red raspberries, maybe even a little less tart and more on the sweet side. Structure-wise, they also didn’t seem to fall apart as easily as ripe red raspberries do. These were far too good for blending into smoothies so I plan to consume the rest of them just as they are. Oh, and that parfait…

It disappeared in about 2 minutes!

Alright, now it’s over to you. Tell me…

• Have you tried golden raspberries before, or any of the less-conventional varieties?
• Anything new tried in your adventures this Tuesday?