Figs!

Captain's Log: Day 15

Figs are one of my most favorite summer fruits, which is super weird because I don't ever recall having them as a kid, except for the dried ones that we would sometimes have around Christmas, and it's not something that you ever hear people talking about.  Like, really, when was the last time that you heard someone say “Oh, my favorite fruit is a fig!”  Probably never.  And honestly, if someone asked me, I would say peaches, or cherries or watermelon, but it probably wouldn’t cross my mind to say figs.  However, any time I’m in the grocery store in the summer, and I see them, I absolutely buy some. 

My in-laws (out-laws?) had a bunch of random trees in the backyard of the house that they moved into, including persimmon, pomegranate and fig.  I loved getting the pomegranates and the figs because pomegranates are so silly expensive and hey, I just like figs.  Especially when they’re fresh and not mushy.  However, figs are incredibly messy and weep this super sticky substance when they’re picked, so a few years ago my FIL got tired of dealing with the mess and just chopped the tree down.  I was sad.  But alas, I can still get my fill of figs from the market (or, ironically from the tree in the front of the Ex-hub's house if I feel so inclined…)

This past weekend, I was seduced by a little basket of black figs when I stopped in the store to quickly grab something.  Yes, you can eat them plain (boring) or put them in a salad (ok) or make homemade fig newtons (good, but a bit of a job), and I’ve seen someone take some sugar, sprinkle it on the fig and crystalize it with a blowtorch, which I tried, and it was good, but not as amazing as I would have liked.  BUT, to really make figs five-minutes-alone worthy, you must add some gorgonzola or blue cheese, balsamic vinegar and caramelized onions.

My original recipe for this calls for you to thinly slice an onion, caramelize it in butter and balsamic vinegar and simmer until the onions are glossy and the balsamic vinegar thickens into a glaze.  Then you hollow out the inside of the figs, removing most of the seeds/pulp, but placing them aside.  To the pulp, you add the cooled caramelized onion/balsamic mixture, some cream cheese and gorgonzola cheese and mix well.  Then, you pipe that lovely mixture back into the center of the fig and serve chilled.  They are delicious and fancy looking.  However, in the words of my girl, Sweet Brown, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” so I now use the Cliff’s Notes version of this recipe because it’s easier.  (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, please do yourself a favor and Google ‘Sweet Brown news interview’ and you will see one of the best news interviews of all time – make sure you watch it like 5-6 times because it gets better every time you watch it…)

Today, for the first time ever, the Captain’s Log brings you a recipe.

Blue Cheese/Balsamic Figs

Ingredients:

Fresh figs

Whipped cream cheese

Crumbled gorgonzola or blue cheese

Terrapin Ridge Farms Balsamic Onion Jam (originally bought at Buck-ees while I was in Texas, but it looks like you can find it in places like Whole Foods or online.  The website also has a couple bacon jams, which would probably be amazing in this recipe too)

Balsamic glaze (from Trader Joe’s – I usually use this if I’m making the fancy, stuffed version, but I don’t always use this if I’m just horking them down myself.)

Wash, dry and cut off the stems of the figs.  If I’m being fancy, I will use a tiny measuring spoon to hollow out the pulp from the figs top down, so they stand on the bottom.  If I’m not being fancy, I just cut them in half and I don’t scoop the pulp.  Make sure to save the pulp if you’ve scooped it out.

We measure with our hearts for this recipe, so into a bowl, add a large spoonful of whipped cream cheese, some crumbled blue cheese, and a scoop of the balsamic onion jam.  If you have the pulp, mush it up and add that too.  Start small with your amounts of everything because you can always add more.  Mix well and add more of anything to taste.  I usually prefer a pretty decent amount of the blue cheese and the jam because 1) I like it, and 2) I want it to be more powerful than the cream cheese, which is really just the vessel to make the filling combine easier.  Once the filling is to your liking, either spoon it onto your fig halves, or put it in a piping bag (or ziplock with one corner cut off) and fill each fig with the filling.  They taste better chilled if you can wait, and then drizzle with the balsamic glaze before serving.  Enjoy!

P.S. I know that that picture of the fig with the cheese blend on it above looks absolutely disgusting and does not do this yumminess justice.  I also know that I did the short cut version and probably should have hollowed it and stuffed it to make it Log worthy. But I already ate it, soooo….

Weather: Sunny and mild.