Cooking

My sister lives in southern California and always has an abundance of juicy, ripe figs. Every once in a while, she’ll call me and ask if I have any good recipes for using up all her figs. I have three fig trees and probably get about 40-50 figs out of all them. Not much compared to 150 or so from each of her many fig trees.
If you don’t have any fresh figs for these recipes, don’t worry. Though fig season here was finished weeks ago, most local markets have jars of fresh figs. Even the dried variety work quite well.

Since I’m quite a fan of crepes, I enjoy making dessert crepes stuffed with lemon soufflé and other types of fruit fillings and then dusted with powdered sugar.
I’ve also had good success with the classic Crepe Suzette, which is nothing more than dessert crepes bathed in an orange-flavored sauce and then, for dramatic flare, flamed with a little Grand Marnier or Cointreau liqueur. The original recipe is from “Great Cooking” by the editors of Time-Life Books, but along the way, I’ve tweaked them just a bit.

Back in 1683, many German-speaking people, including Mennonites from Switzerland and Holland and the Amish, an offshoot of the Mennonites, began migrating from Europe to Pennsylvania. They tilled the land and built big barns and homes.
Since then, they have come to be known as the Pennsylvania Dutch.
One of the more popular dishes was slippery pot pie, made with square noodle dough cooked with either beef or chicken and its broth, along with potatoes and onions. A crumb pie, called shoo-fly pie, and funeral pie, a combination of raisins and lemon, were also favored.

Cheryle Jones Syracuse
Family and Consumer Science Staff N.C. Cooperative Extension
Brunswick County Center
In last week’s column, I talked about this being National Food Safety Education Month and some of the things restaurants can do to train their staff in food safety. That’s all well and good and I certainly support ongoing training for those who work in restaurants and the food service industry.