The summer fruits are winking at the markets, enticing us with their plump “rondeurs” and their rosy cheeks. Peaches, nectarines, apricots, dark velvety red cherries, flirty strawberries and mischievous blueberries and raspberries, blackberries and all kinds of beady berries. The best way of course is to enjoy the summer fruits right from the tree, picking with one hand and eating with the other. Or buy the red cheeked nectarine at the market stand and have the juices run down the palm of your hand right there while you pay Monsieur his few centimes. But should he complain about your bad manners and sticky money, you can place your peaches elegantly in your basket and hurry home, take out your pan, cut up your summer fruits, call your friend and tell her/him to come over with some creme fraiche and quickly pan sautée your cut fruit in a caramelized vanilla syrup. Sit down under the walnut tree with your friend and scoop up a spoonful of fruit with a dollop of cream and imagine what paradise must be like.
Pan sautéed summer fruits
- Melt some butter in a big pan, add some sugar and melt over low heat. Add a good serving of white balsamic vinegar to the syrup.
- Clean summer fruits of your choice: peaches, nectarines, apricots, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries…
- Remove the seeds and cut the bigger peaches, nectarines and apricots into quarters. Leave the strawberries and other berries whole. Remove the seeds of the cherries.
- Add the harder fruits like the peaches and apricots tot the butter mixture. Simmer gently in the syrup for a few minutes.Add the rest of the fruit, keeping some berries aside to add fresh just before serving.
- Stir over the heat for a few minutes more.
- Add a handful of torn basil leaves and fresh mint.
- Pour into serving bowls and serve while warm with ice cream or cream on the side.
Suggestions:
- Any mixture of fruits can be used.
- Vary the sizes of the fruits for interest in texture and visual appeal.
- Don’t overcook the fruit…keep it still with some crunch.
- Serve while still slightly warm.
- Collect interesting small pans to serve outside.
- It can easily be prepared on the barbecue.
- Add vanilla seeds scraped from a vanilla pod and some fresh thyme for variation.
…Beaulieu-sur -Dordogne is a beautiful medieval town on the banks of the Dordogne river, situated in la vallée de la Dordogne in Corréze…
Even though we fall under the commune of Puy d’Arnac here at Coin Perdu, our mountain home, Beaulieu sur Dordogne is the village where we do our shopping…the marché, a morning cafe créme with croissants. It is also where Hartman regularly stops at Point P with his remorque to fill up on building material. Les Monsieurs just take out the book, have him sign and off he goes, back to Coin Perdu where the work is waiting. I might linger longer…have a coffee at Les voyageurs, chat with Cecile, walk around with my sketchbook and camera, buy strawberries and salad at the marché and pop in at the Antiquités.
…hôtel de ville…
…baron de Marbot Marcellin…
…une boulangerie et une boucherie – two places no french town can do without…
…la place du marché…
…where the Antiquités draws me in every time with its beautiful things of yesteryear…
…la bôite a lettre et l’eau potable – for those thirsty moments and the ever important letter or postcard to post…
…if’ like me, you love anything architectural, all these beautiful old lintels above the doors will keep you spell bounded, in awe of the craftsmanship and detail…
…and still more…
…few things can be as fascinating as watching people, making up stories about them, wondering about their hopes and dreams and then turn around to wonder about our own…
… never a dull moment when it comes to a little humor and interest…
…and beauty is always present…
…in the charm of old stone and wood, pretty lace and an unpretentious flower…
If ever you might be passing through our special area of Corréze, turn off at Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne, give me a call and drop in for un petit noir at our Coin Perdu, only 10 minutes away… where the world really comes to a standstill and like Peter Pan, we live extracts of life we never thought possible.
…à la prochaine..!
Myfrenchkitchen 
Our fruit is not ready yet, but I would love to prepare it this way when it comes into season. Right now we have only strawberries (with cherries on the way).
Thank you for the tour. Such beauty!
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Summer has arrived for you, ROnell! Enjoy 🙂
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Hi Ronell – lovely post! Wish I was the friend you call to come join you and eat that bowl of fruit and cream!!
Take care!
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The fruit looks delicious … makes my mouth water to look at it. Your photo’s are spectacular. Such gorgeous scenery.
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Ronell ~ I was just thinking of you yesterday and how I missed you posting!!
What lovely fruit and great ideas for serving.
Your photography is amazing. So much inspiration around you to sketch and paint.
Hope you are having a great summer (or I guess we really are still in spring!;)
xx ~Dana
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What a gorgeous picture of your cooked fruit, I could have some right now for breakfast…mmmmmm, now you make me want to go to the farmers market and get some fresh fruit.
And I ABSOLUTELY LOVE your tour of the town, wishing I were there right now with my love. Dreaming……
Arlene
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I wish I were in the neighborhood and could stop by for a visit! Beautiful photos. I love the stone staircase with moss. And, your fruit looks incredible. The white balsamic in the butter sounds delicious.
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The fruit is so special now – I forget to cook with it – I just gobble it up. Feel inspired to buy double the amount (in season not expensive!) and throw some in butter. The touch of white balsamic sings. And your part of the world looks like a place to slow down, dream, create and savor.
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What a beautiful part of the world you live in, Ronell. If I ever get back to France I’ll pop in for coffee and hope for some of this yummy sounding fruit. And you can be sure I’ll make this dish later in the summer when our peaches are ripe here in Oregon.
Thanks for stopping by my blog.
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France is so beautiful! I’ve never been there but maybe some day…! The fresh fruit looks divine! The cherries here will be ready in about a month or so. I can’t wait!
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Ronell, what can I say? Absolutely beautiful!! (Prentjie boek mooi!!) The pan sautéed fruit looks delicious and I am now going to look for fresh fruit to eat because I am so hungry after looking at your lovely photographs!!! The town of Beaulieu-sur -Dordogne is beautiful and I love your photographs……your life there looks like a story in a movie! Enjoy!
Ixx
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Hey Ronelle, I love the sound of fresh stewed summer fruits. Sometimes I stew dry fruits Moroccan style, but I’ve never done this. I’m going to check for peaches or nectarines when I’m at the organic market! Correze is so beautiful by the way. Wish I could visit…
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Freash summer fruit, and an easy preparation, and gorgeous photos…it doesn’t get much better than this!
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Lovely photos–what a beautiful town you live in–the seared fruits look gorgeous and I will make them-pack a pic nic and invite a friend to have some with whipped cream near the Kare Krishna tree in Tompkins Square Park.
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Oh la la my beautiful friend,
Thank you, thank you for the luscious descriptions of the fruits, the photos, the walk through town, and the lovely lintels…thank you for everything! I so enjoyed it all and will try preparing my fruits this way, but really, I will be in Maine and MOST of my fruits are dangling from the trees (or nestled amid the pine needle mulch) in my California gardens.
Sending love from the road where I gave a lecture tonight in a wonderful 100 year old artist studio (T.C. Steele) in Nashville, Indiana. Oh, in case you don’t know where it is it is near Bean Blossom and Gnaw Bone. Think I’m kidding??? Nope.
Love to you,
Sharon Lovejoy Writes from Sunflower House and a Little Green Island
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I would so love to tour beside you, Ronell! Life crazy on this side of the sea, it’s been way too long for a visit. I must prepare this recipe! Love how you create just what my palate craves. You are such an artist in all that you do …
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Hello Ronell,
So glad that I came across your beautiful blog! My family and I lived in Noyers-sur-Cher…….near St. Aignan in the Loire Valley from 1998-2000. I have such lovely memories of the Touraine. We have been in Belgium for the last 10 years, but will now be moving back to France…….to Paris! Can’t wait for the fantastic market scene!! Thanks for the lovely pictures and your delightful words. I’m following you from now on ; )~~
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Your blog always makes me fell like I am catching up with an old frien over coffee. Thank you so much for the ease with which you write. The fruit looks yummy. Have a wonderful summer. Rita
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I am so attuned to your vision and approach; having lived in France I appreciated the small architectural details and everything about my life there (except the bad weather) and wish to go back again to ” la campagne”
in Lebanon and Beirut, specifically, one must have an eye for detail to be able to weed out the ugly and focus on the beauty, that is there, but not obvious on display.
Love your treatment of the fresh fruits.
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I wish I were with you right now!!!!! We could sit with our sketchbooks in our laps and do nothing.
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Oh moi j’ai un faible pour les fruits a la poêle ou grillés!un vrai délice…ah la France quel beau pays, c’est vrai quand on est a l’étranger on a tendance a oublier toutes ces petites choses qui la rendent vraiment unique, enfin comme beaucoup de pays dans notre vieille Europe.
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Thank you for the visit everybody and an even bigger thank your for your little stories…I LOVE hearing them…
like Lori, with her beautiful horses!… who has cherries on the way,
and I can see Lisa loves old stone and staircases,
and Gillian who is already a friend wth whom i would LOVE to share a bowl of fruit,
and Arlene who dreams of France,
Pat who wants to nothing with her sketchbook on her lap(I know that so well he he!),
Melanie who is in the mood for pic nic..of course taking her camera along!,
Anh is right on the opposite side of summer,
Ingrid I’ll be seeing very soon and we’ll cook together,
and Joey is going through a hectic phase,
Stella who does fruit the Moroccan way, which I hope she’ll show us soon!,
Sharon is on a 5 week book tour and will soon be in her beloved Maine,
Kris is still waiting for their cherries to ripen and she is a lover of France too,
and Kathy is returning to France!!,
and Jo is still waiting for the summer fruits in Oregon…a bit colder there I suppose?,
I can see Claudia loves fresh fruit…it doesn’t stay in her fruit bowl long enough to go into a recipe!,
with Rita I go back a long way and she is a dear”old” friend(not in age but in time!!),
and beautiful, exotic Joumana lives in Beirut, where my daughter is working on an architect project right now(in Paris) and I am learning much more about Beirut,
Nancy is an old artist friend of mine and I love hearing from her here…she is so talented!,
and I always love hearing from you Dana…who does wedding invitations in the most elegant calligraphy!,
and Nisrine does wonderful Maroccon cooking…I hope you all have her cookbook – Marrakesh express!!,
and Silvia, whose blogname(citron et vanille) I LOVE(wish it was mine!!) who loves her France even though she is now living in the US…actually she is also Italian…and looking at her you can see her Italian/French beauty…ahhhh sigh…!
So whenever someone leaves a comment, I immediately read your story through the comment…to me that is SO special, actually much more special than hearing this is a wonderful recipe or nice pictures…it is a way of getting in touch with the world out there in a slightly more personal way, without ME being invasive in anyone’s private life…
So thank you for giving me this something special.
Ronelle
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omg… this place is ABSOLUTELY beautiful. i’m going to france as a teaching assistant in the nantes academy this fall! i can’t wait to visit this place!!!
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