Go Fruit!

Pancakes with fruit filling, 4 servings

Ingredients:

 

Dough

50 g plain white flour

50 g wholemeal

1 egg

3 dl milk

2 tablespoon oil

 

Filling

1 can of pineappe (about 400 grams)

2 oranges

25 g chopped walnuts

2 teaspoon potato- or cornstarch

 

Method:

Dough

Whip egg, plain flour and wholemeal flour in a bowl. Continue whipping while slowly adding the milk. Heat some oil in a frying pan and pour some of the dough unto it so it covers the pan in a thin layer. Wait until the pancake is golden brown and turn it. When the other side is done, move the pancake to a plate and start making the next one. Continue until all the dough is used.

 

Filling

Peel and slice the oranges to cubes. Cut the pineapple slices to cubes as well and pour 1.5 dl of the pineapple juice from the can into a pot. Mix 2 tablespoons of pineapple juice with the potato or corn starch. Bring the pineapple juice to boil, turn down the heat, add the pineapple juice and potato starch mixture and stir thoroughly until it thickens. Add half of the fruits to the juice, mix and spread it on the pancakes. Fold the pancakes around the filling and use the rest of the juice and fruits as garnish.

Serve warm. You can keep the pancakes in the oven at 100 degrees to keep them warm while you are baking the rest.

Supermarkets put colours on flavours in new research project

Last week, three supermarkets in Lleida, Spain presented a newly developed colour system for fruit flavours to their customers. The idea behind it is that the introduction of many new varieties of the same fruits to the market in recent years, without any information about what they taste like is confusing. For example two apple varieties that are similar in appearance can taste very differently and this may discourage consumers from trying out new varieties. By knowing the colour of your favourite flavour, it should be easier to find out which varieties to buy. The research project is a collaboration between Catalònia Qualitat, the Plusfresc Supermarkets Chain and IRTA. However, the idea to put colours on fruit flavours was developed in the ISAFRUIT project, where a consumer survey of 5000 respondents, across 7 countries, revealed that consumers can be separated into 3 large groups when it comes to taste preferences of apples and peaches. You can view a presentation of that study here on GoFruit! (go to videos of full-lenghts presentations and choose ‘consumer segmentation for fruit’) or at YouTube (links) (Source: IRTA).

ISAFRUIT CASA sprayer presented to farmers

The new sprayer, which uses a Crop Adapted Spray Application (CASA) system and has been developed in ISAFRUIT to reduce the amounts of pesticides in fruit orchards, was recently on display at a an event for pear growers in the Netherlands (videos in Dutch).

 

 

Fruit Cream, 6-8 servings

This fruit cream is apparently Polish. Like in last week, you can use blueberries in it. Try and let us know what you think.

 

Ingredients:

840 g berries (for example raspberries, redcurrants, blueberries or a mixture)

1.2 L water

250 g sugar

1 cinnamon stick

4 whole cloves

2 tablespoon grated lemon rind

120 ml white vine

3 tablespoons cornstarch or potato flour

 

Method:

Blend the berries and pour into a pot with the water. Bring to boil while stirring; add sugar, cinnamon stick and cloves and let it simmer for 15 minutes. Remove cinnamon and cloves and add lemon rind. Mix the flour thoroughly with the vine and add it to the berries. Keep the mixture at medium heat while stirring continuously until it thickens (takes about 5 minutes). Put the fruit cream in a bowl and leave it in the fridge to cool for a couple of hours.

Serve for example as accompaniment to ice cream or eat it as stewed fruit with milk.   

 

Many children will lose their free school fruit

In 2009/2010 a European school fruit scheme was introduced to support provision of free fruits in schools. The purpose of the scheme is to increase fruit consumption among school children in order to encourage a healthy lifestyle and prevent obesity. A total of €90 million per year is set aside from EU and member states applying for funds should double the amount they apply for with funding from within the country. Unfortunately, already in its second year, the funds spent on school fruit schemes are falling in many large European countries such as the UK, Germany, France and Spain. The worst decrease is seen in the UK were funds have been reduced almost 90 % from €11.1 to €1.2 (source: Fruitnet).

Highlights from the ISAFRUIT Forum: ‘Better fruit for the consumer’, Dublin 2010

Highlights video from the conference ‘Better fruit for the consumer’ held in Ashtown Food Research Centre, Dublin, Ireland on 18^th of May 2010.  Fruit retailing, health benefits of fruit, consumer trends in purchase, national and international health policies and innovative outcomes from ISAFRUIT in fruit production were presented and debated.

 

 

Versatile bananas

Bananas are one of the world’s most popular and consumed fruits with an annual production of around 42 million tons. Unfortunately, banana production generates a lot of plant waste material and it is estimated that 10 million tons of banana stems end up in rivers and landfills each year. Some of the banana remnants are not easily degraded; thus the waste has a detrimental effect on the surrounding environment. A few companies have found value in the waste and now produce very alternative banana products out of plant fibres from the stems and bark of banana trees. In Australia, the company ‘AussieBum’ has launched a range of eco-friendly men’s underwear containing 27 % banana fibres and in the US, ‘Ecopaper’ is producing banana paper. For both products no banana smell is guaranteed! (Source: Ecopaper, Thaindian News)

Blueberry squares

July is the peak time for harvesting of blueberries and has for that reason been named the national blueberry month in Germany and the US. Of course we will celebrate blueberry month here on GoFruit! starting today with a lovely blueberry fruit dessert.

Ingredients:

Pastry

225 g butter

100 g sugar

375 g flour

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

 

Filling

420 g blueberries

200 g sugar

3 tablespoon cornstarch

 

1 teaspoon powdered sugar for garnish

 

Method:

 

Pastry

Mix sugar and butter thoroughly in a bowl and add salt, vanilla and flour. When blended, add the egg and knead into a smooth dough. Leave the dough in the fridge for about 2 hours.

Filling

Heat blueberries, sugar and cornstarch in a pan and bring to boil while constantly stirring. When the mixture thickens (takes about 3 minutes) remove from heat and let it cool.

Spread out 2/3 of the dough into a roasting dish (20 x 30 cm) and press the dough up the sides as well. Pour over the filling. Roll out the remaining dough, cut it into strips and arrange them over the filling.

Bake at 190 degrees for 30-40 minutes until the top is golden brown.

Let it cool and garnish with powdered sugar.

Cut into squares and serve for example with whipped cream.

Nice little apple tale from England

Mrs Chessel had lived with the same apple tree in her garden for 37 years in Horringer, England.  When she moved house she wanted to plant the same cooking apple variety in her new garden, so she started a search to identify it. What should have been an easy task was still without result after three years and surprisingly the tree ended up being classified as unknown. Therefore Mrs Chessel got the opportunity to name it ‘Suffolk Stiles Pippin’ after her family name and the origin of the tree. A nursery offered to produce three grafts of the tree to her and she has now donated one of the new trees to Ickworth’s gardens, which is aiming to safeguard rare fruit species (Source BBC).

Biological fruit preservation

At the IRTA post-harvest unit in Lleida, Dr. Maribel Abadias is one of a team of researchers identifying biological methods to prevent early microbiological spoilage of fresh-cut fruit products. In this video she explains her work, which has been carried out as part of the ISAFRUIT project.