Hello, my precious…
I was tortured, tortured I tell you, reading about Trader Joe’s fig butter on other food blogs but being unable to find it at my own Trader Joe’s (they didn’t even have an empty space on the shelf, so I knew they weren’t simply out of it). So finally, finally I laid my hands on four jars (to start, my dear readers, that’s only to start). The word on the street was that it tastes like the filling inside a Fig Newton, and that indeed is the case. It’s fantastic on sprouted grain toast, fantastic dolloped on a bowl of oatmeal, fantastic stirred into plain Greek yogurt. It’s simply…fantastic. I can’t decide if I like it more than TJ’s heavenly pumpkin butter, but it’s way better than the mango butter.
The above photo isn’t the sharpest, because it was taken with my iPhone (as are all of my photos) in quickly fading light. But I’ll have you know that it is photographed in front of…wait for it…our actual backyard fig tree. Hahahahahah! (One of two, actually. The other is in a huge pot on the other side of the patio.)
Our house is just full of figgy goodness right now. Last weekend, Jeff made a small batch of fig jam (from organic figs from TJ’s, not from our own figs, which pretty much ripen a few at a time, making them uncooperative with any jam-making efforts).
And last night, I made fig pizza! I really wanted to get back to Tutta Bella a second time before their seasonal fig pizza disappeared from the menu, but it eventually became clear that I was dreaming the impossible dream (I don’t understand how people think it saves time to go out to eat…dining out is a huge time sink in my busy schedule!). So I took some whole wheat pizza dough from TJ’s (yes, I need to make my own…it will happen eventually), brushed on a bit of olive oil, sprinkled on a little salt and granulated garlic, then distributed chopped prosciutto, fig pieces (I cut them into eighths), fresh rosemary (from our garden) and crumbled goat cheese. For the final touch, I drizzled some reduced balsamic vinegar over the whole, lovely mess.
Jeff says we don’t ever need to go to Tutta Bella again. I don’t entirely agree (they do have wood-fired ovens that I don’t have), but I’ll take the compliment. He was probably just seduced by the fact that I was quite liberal with the figs (Tutta can be a touch skimpy on the toppings).
As I emerge from a fig-induced haze, I just have one thing to say: I can’t wait for persimmon season!