Perhaps Its Silly

Usually I avoid posting recipes that seem too simple to be called a recipe but I recently saw a recipe in a newspaper or magazine for broccoli steamed with some fresh thyme added. That person got paid to include a recipe that basically said to add thyme sprigs to the broccoli you were steaming. So maybe I'm being silly when I decide to not post something really simple or perhaps it still is silly to post it. Who knows? Since I'm working on posting many of the things we eat and like enough to eat again, our almost-daily fruit bowl is next up.

Having a bowl of fruit with our breakfast has become a habit, one that Sweetie started years ago when he retired. Even though the melon during part of the year is not terribly flavorful, we still seem to like that kind of fruit in the breakfast bowl. Now that it is August, the local melons are here and they are fragrant, sweet, juicy and full of flavor.

My favorite is the cantaloupe with its pale gold netting and firm but juicy orange flesh. You can tell if a cantaloupe is ripe by putting it close to your nose and taking a good sniff. A ripe melon has a deep melon fragrance. The stem end also is usually soft, but if you don't get at least some melon fragrance, don't waste your money.

You can obviously add or subtract any favorite fruit here, as well as adjust the amounts depending on what you like and how much you have on hand. We prep the melons when we bring them home from the store, so there is usually a storage container or bowl full of cut up chunks of melon. Being somewhat lazy in the morning before I've had my coffee, I tend to keep the additions to fruits that don't require much prep. Blackberries (picked in advance), blueberries and banana all fit that requirement. Cherries and stone fruits like peaches, nectarines and apricots that need peeling and slicing and having the pits removed are wonderful in a fruit bowl if you have the patience to do that prep in the morning. In general those fruits are less successful if they are prepared the night before. They tend to get mushy or to have brown edges...same with apples.


Breakfast Fruit Bowl

Chunks of:
cantaloupe
watermelon
honey dew melon

Handfuls of:
blackberries
strawberries
grapes
blueberries

On top slice:
half a banana per bowl

Vary the combination of fruits depending on the season and what you have on hand. The half of a banana seems to be the one fruit we never skip including.