Summer fruit and salad days

It's summer here in Australia and while the land is baking it is often too hot to bake, so fresh summer fruits and salads served simply with minimal preparation and cooking is the way to go.

Where I live in the south west of Western Australia we have an abundance of fresh summer fruits this time of year - apricots, peaches, plums, nectarines - as well as grapes, cherries, strawberries, mangoes, pomegranates - the list goes on. It is absolutely my favourite time of year for fresh fruit, just waiting to be quickly prepared and served fresh and juicy. 

How about fresh fruit with musli for breakfast on the patio? I don't know why I don't have this more often. So delicious. Just chop, layer, serve and enjoy!

These collages I have made with "PicMonkey" on-line photo editor. I have only just heard of it - Have you tried it? It's free on the web and lots of fun.

How about a fresh tossed salad for lunch?  Pomegranate adds a yummy zing. 

To keep reading and seeing more pics, please click on "read more"....

The fruits of summer

I love the fruit this time of year, especially the beautiful stone fruits that we can buy locally grown in our area - peaches, nectarines, plums. The plums with the dark red flesh are my favourite. I used to always buy satsuma plums, but now they are hard to find, so I buy a "rosa" plum variety. Evidently the red flesh varieties are very high in anti-oxidants. 

According to the Department of Agriculture and Food "The south-west region has a temperate Mediterranean climate, suitable soils and availability of good quality, irrigation water which favours the production of high quality, flavoured and well coloured stone fruit". So how lucky are we!
Mixed in with that we also have strawberries, blueberries, grapes, cherries, rhubarb, bananas, apples.... No wonder I love the fruits of summer!

hmm...where are the strawberries! We haven't grown strawberries for years. At one time we used to go out to a strawberry garden just out of Bunbury where you could "pick your own" (tastings allowed). We used to pick a few kilo, eat them fresh and make strawberry jam - so delicious straight from the vine.

We only have a small back garden, but we have an apricot, lemon, and orange trees and two grape vines. And during summer a few tomato plants. Below you can see our trees. On the RHS of the top picture you can see the net "structure" made from irrigation pipe that we put up over our apricot tree so that the birds don't take all our fruit. The apricots are usually finished by mid-January, so then we take the net off and put it over our grape vine (LHS). It is the only way we can keep the birds away, but still they manage to find little holes to come through.

So from apricot flowers to fruit - 

How about a beautiful apricot dessert -

This one has Tiramisu  mixture on the top - 

or a delicious apricot and almond dessert slice with cream. I made this with home bottled apricots, you can see them in the background.

Recipe compliments of Tartlette - go here for the link - Apricot & almond tart

Or how about a simple fresh summer fruit bowl with yoghurt or for breakfast with musli? I don't know why I don't have a breakfast like this every day this time of year!

And of course you can't forget the jam making

So there you have it. The fruits of summer. Do you have fruit trees growing in your back yard?

Next week I will come back and tell you about the grape jam making - it is a tradition in our family.

Until then...... I'm having breakfast on my patio with the travel section of the newspaper while I dream about our next holiday.  Have a wonderful week. I look forward to hearing from you. 

I am linking up with Mary and the other wonderful contributors at Mosaic Monday at Little Red House and Our World Tuesday. Please click here on the links to see their contributions...... 

Mosaic Monday

Our World Tuesday

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