You’re at the farmers market. Look at all the peaches! And blueberries! And tomatoes! You buy it all! And then, a few days later, you’ve eaten only a quarter of your stash and the rest is starting to brown. I’ve been there.
So have many members of the BA staff. But there’s plenty you can do to salvage those bright flavors. Here are some of our favorite ways to get the most out of fruit that’s juuust passing its prime.
Healthyish assistant editor Aliza Abarbanel takes inspiration from this Instagram post from cookbook author Amy Chaplin and blitzes her bruised peaches into a peach-chia breakfast shake. It’s as easy as tossing almond milk, peaches, and vanilla into a blender, topping with chia seeds, and chilling overnight. The ideal breakfast.
For editorial assistant Jesse Sparks, a lightly macerated fruit salad tossed with salt, sugar, black Urfa chile pepper, and cinnamon makes lackluster fruit taste “delightfully bright and complex.” “To go one step further,” he adds, “you can even split your cut fruit measurements in half and only macerate one half of the bunch. This way some chunks are riper and softer, while the other half feels a bit more crisp and fresh against the macerated portion. It’s a bit of a psychology trick to make even bad fruit taste great.” Brilliant.
“This is boring,” writes Basically editor Sarah Jampel, “but I most often make shrub!” Frankly there’s nothing boring about a shrub, a tangy and refreshing concentrate of fruit, vinegar, and sugar that can be drunk by itself or in cocktails. Jampel loves Al Culliton’s easy method, which simply requires letting all the ingredients hang out for a few hours in a tightly sealed jar.
The solution to bruised fruit is always compote for associate editor Christina Chaey. Here’s her method: “Simmer chunks of bruised fruit with water or fruit juice (like fresh orange juice), sweetener like sugar/honey/maple syrup, a spice or two if you want (cinnamon, cardamom, star anise) until it completely breaks down and becomes jammy.” Use it to top yogurt, spread on toast, or blend with a smoothie.
“I usually just bake it, since it would get broken down and squishy anyways,” says digital restaurant editor Elyse Inamine. One of her favorite bakes is these blueberry hand pies by food stylist Sue Li. “The crust-to-fruit ratio is perfect,” she says, and they are also the perfect portable treat for a picnic.
Bruised tomatoes are no big deal for senior staff writer Alex Beggs—she just turns them into this grated tomato sauce, courtesy of the chef Ashley Christensen. The grating method is ingenious—it eliminates the mess that often comes with slicing tomatoes and skins them too, leaving you with uniformly shredded bits. No one will ever know you started with a bruised tomato.
BA.com editor Sasha Levine macerates her bruised berries and eats them with whipped cream for dessert (or breakfast). The salt and sugar amplify the flavor of even the most bruised fruit, and when you’re macerating, “everything gets a little soft and mushy,” she says, “so who’s to know they started out a little less than perfect?”
And finally, associate editor Hilary Cadigan keeps it super simple. “I just make smoothies. So many smoothies.” Cadigan pro tip: Add kale powder and tell yourself you are very healthy!
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