Summer Fruits

One of the great delights of summer is abudance of fruits. After months of the same old apples, pears and oranges, it is the time of the year when stone fruits and succulent berries are at their peak. Some berries like strawberries, blueberries and raspberries are available throughout the year in US but late spring to early summer is their 'peak'. Strawberries at their peak season are of high quality and very sweet.


Start summer morning with colorful breakfast. Pancakes with fresh summer fruits, butter and maple syrup.


My half eaten pancakes.


Another healthy breakfast, granola, yoghurt and berries.



I love yoghurt with fruits. In Sydney, yoghurt is available anywhere at fruit bars/ fresh food stores. I once bought manufactured prepared yoghurt and it tasted horrible, since then I only trusted yoghurt at fresh food stores.

Yoghurt with different toppings at fruit bar in SydneyPhoto taken from Flickr

However in NY, there isn't any cafe/stores that sell yoghurt like in Sydney. I have no choice but to try manufactured prepared yoghurt, they taste ok but I still prefer yoghurt at fruit bars in Sydney. In US, yogurt (instead of yoghurt) is a common spelling. All manufactured preparead yoghurt in US are fat free/ low fat, it makes me wonder if full cream yoghurt available in US?


I like to buy blueberries in bulk and freeze them. I put frozen blueberries on top of yoghurt or just eat them frozen as sweet treats, it is like biting mini blueberries ice.


From all the summer fruits, my favorite is pluot. The first time I saw pluot, I was hesitated to try because they look weird with spotted skin, but I soon fell in love with this fruit. Pluots were originally invented in the late 20th century and are now grown in parts of Washington and California. Pluot is a hybrid of plum and apricot being 3/4 plum and 1/4 apricot in percentage. It has smooth skin like plum, sometimes it is called Dinosaur Egg. The name Pluot comes from PLU for the plum and OT for the apricot.

There are a lot of varieties but the common one is Dapple Dandy which has red spotted skin and flesh ranges from red to pink.

How does it taste? It is exteremly sweet and juicy. It is reddiesh at outer part and pinkish at inner part. Like plum, pluot is easily bruised.


See the flesh color, from reddish to pinkish.