Tradition!

 What’s cooking? Fruit Compote 1 a.m.

So many traditions this year have been tossed by the wayside, hit-and-run victims of COVID-19. For us, I’ll especially miss the trips to NJ that include Christmas dinner with our gang of relatives living in the Northeast, the Christmas Eve candlelight service at the church we’ve attended for so many years, and the drive afterward through the Summit, NJ neighborhoods where luminarias line the streets.

But not all traditions have been flattened into the asphalt.  A group of Austin friends – all wives of guys who golf together – met for our annual Christmas lunch in one woman’s backyard on Friday, because that’s what you can still do in South Texas at this time of year. And the absence of travel has spurred the Kitchen Goddess to make a truly ridiculous number of cookies for shipping around the country, including a tin to the doctors and nurses who work with my son in the ICU. And almost everyone is either lighting a menorah or defiantly putting up a Christmas tree.

Speaking of Christmas trees, Austin folk have their own tradition that’s alive and kicking even in a pandemic. On Loop 360, which has a long stretch of nothing much but spruce trees, Austinites annually have taken to decorating those trees at Christmas. Tinsel, Christmas ornaments, ribbons, and paper plate designs – nothing is too much or too little. You pick out a tree and go for it. It’s a little bit of Austin weirdness at Christmas, and special crews of volunteers take it all down after the holidays. Now how much fun is that?

One of the Kitchen Goddess’s traditions is to give away jams and preserves that she made from the summer’s bounty in NJ. No NJ fruits this year, and she didn’t think far enough into the future when her Sungold tomatoes were on the vine. Also, she was eating them almost as fast as they showed up.

But there is something even you can do, from what’s in your grocery store right now. At our house, it’s called Fruit Compote 1am, because it’s usually about that time that the Goddess looks around at the fruit she has and realizes it won’t all get eaten before it goes bad. In that case, there’s nothing better to make than fruit compote, regardless of the hour.

Pretty much any combination of fruits will do, so if you have strawberries instead of blackberries, or you used up all your cranberries, or you could only find frozen rhubarb,  just cobble together what you have– or check the frozen fruit aisle for substitutes, because if you only have apples, what you get is... applesauce. And compote is more fun.

A plain Rhubarb Compote (from a previous blog), on grilled apricots.

What you can do with this compote is never-ending. One friend put some of mine on a rice pudding that hadn’t turned out as well as she’d hoped. She said it saved the day. I put it on yogurt, ice cream, waffles, pancakes, or French toast. The Kitchen Goddess has softened vanilla ice cream and swirled compote into it for a dessert that looks like it took hours. Or put a bow on a jar of it and call it a Christmas gift.

The Kitchen Goddess often has Fruit Compote 1 a.m. over Greek yogurt for breakfast.

So here it is – my holiday gift to you.

Fruit Compote 1 a.m.

Kitchen Goddess note: It’s a good idea to have at least some fairly tart fruit – like rhubarb, cranberries, or plums – as these keep the compote from being too sweet. And I recommend using apples with a good flavor, that don’t fall apart completely in the cooking. Most recipes recommend Honeycrisp, Gala, Granny Smith, Jonathan, or Cortland, but many others will probably do. Pretty sure I used Gala. In total, you want almost 3 pounds of fruit.

Makes 3 pints.

Ingredients
1 pound rhubarb, cut in ½-inch dice (fresh or frozen)
½ cup blackberries
4 ounces fresh cranberries
1 medium pear, cut in ½-inch dice 
2-3 apples (about 1½ pounds total), cut in ½-inch dice
3 strips of lemon zest, about ½-inch wide and 2 inches long
1-inch knob of ginger, grated
1 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
¾ teaspoon salt, or to taste
2 tablespoons Calvados (or whatever alcohol sounds good to you: ginger liqueur, white wine, champagne, Grand Marnier, brandy, sherry)

Directions
In a large (4-quarts) saucepan, stir together everything but the alcohol. Keep stirring every few minutes until the sugar dissolves and the juices from the fruit emerge in enough volume to give you a stew-y consistency. Bring the fruit to a boil, then reduce the heat to get the fruit lightly bubbling. Simmer about 15 minutes, then add your alcohol of choice and simmer another 4-5 minutes. Taste, and if it seems too sweet, add another ¼ teaspoon of kosher salt.

Spoon the compote into pint jars and refrigerate. Or preserve as with jam.

Happy Holidays! Stay safe and be kind to others. Tip lavishly, and give as much as you can to your local food pantry. It’ll raise your spirits in ways that will surprise you.