Summer’s Best Peaches with Mascarpone and Passionfruit Drizzle

I know; kinda crazy that on the first day of Fall I would publish a recipe called Summer’s Best Peaches with Mascarpone and Passionfruit Drizzle!  But, it’s been blazing hot here with no sign of Fall!  Just yesterday it was 105 degrees at our house.  Ugh!

So, all I’ve been thinking about are ways to make lighter, more refreshing meals and the last couple of weeks, the peaches have been amazing.  Perfectly ripe and dripping with sweetness, each juicy bite has been a pleasure.  Even though eating the peaches alone was just fine, I wanted to create a recipe for them that was easy to make and didn’t heat up the kitchen.

Summer’s Best Peaches with Mascarpone and Passionfruit Drizzle is just that kind of perfect recipe – made with a few fresh ingredients (peaches and passionfruit) and then a couple more choice ingredients (mascarpone cheese and honey), it’s hard to “classify” because you can make it for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dessert!

I love the creamy delicate flavor of Mascarpone.  To me, it tastes a little like British Devon cream, only a little different in texture and thickness.  It’s rich, slightly sweet flavor and creamy texture complements the peaches beautifully.  But, I wanted to drizzle them with passionfruit nectar, which can be slightly sour but has a tantalizing tropical aroma.  Plus, the seeds are fun to eat because they pop in your mouth when you crunch on them!

So, to “sweeten the pot”, I added a few tablespoons of honey to the Mascarpone cheese, stirring until creamy; then I added the passionfruit pulp.  Don’t you just love my serving fork that says “Fork It Over”? So cute!  And, how about my beautiful platter with the birds on the side?  Got this at Home Goods years ago.

Several years ago, I met a fellow blogger, Vanessa, at a blogging conference in Las Vegas.  We hit it off after a few minutes of chatting.  The down side of our friendship is that she lives in Australia.  That’s right – she flew all the way from Australia to attend a blogging conference in Las Vegas!

Anyway, about 9 months after meeting her, I celebrated my first anniversary as a blogger.  So, I decided to throw a blog-o-versary party.  And, even though it was a long shot, I invited Vanessa.  And, she came!

During her time with us, she introduced me to passionfruit (yes, that’s the correct spelling; Americans often misspell it as two words:  passion fruit).  She made Vanessa’s Pavlova and drizzled passionfruit over the top of the other fruit.  It was amazingly delicious!  Vanessa, Charlie and I ate the whole thing in one sitting!  I kid you not!

I’ve written several posts about Vanessa and her visit with us and you can find them here:

Bloggy Boot Camp Revealed

Barefoot with Friends and Vanessa’s Pavlova

Vanessa’s Rainbow, Tim Tam and Vegemite

42 Things to do at the San Diego Zoo

Passionfruit also grows here in Southern California, so it’s available in our grocery stores when it’s in season.  My friend, Sita and her husband, Carl, have a few trees in their backyard.  They brought me frozen passionfruit once (they harvest it and then freeze the pulp to use later) and we made Passion Fruit Punch to go with Sita’s Curry Chicken and Calypso Rice.  YUM!  But, I digress…here’s a nice, long Pinteresting photo to pin to your Pinterest board!

I also want to take a moment to acknowledge Sandra Lee, who is fighting breast cancer.  I’ve learned so much from watching Sandra’s shows over the years, reading her magazines and cookbooks (I think I own all of her cookbooks) and reading her autobiography.  She’s an amazing talent and beautiful soul and one of the things I learned from her many years ago, when watching her TV shows, was using a plastic food storage bag as a pastry bag.  To this day, I don’t own a pastry bag, but whenever I need to do something that requires a pastry bag, I use her tip.

And, that tip is this:  place a gallon-size food storage bag inside a large plastic cup and fold the ends of the bag over the cup’s edge with the bag snugly inside the cup.  Spoon whatever it is (frosting, deviled-egg filling and in this case, Mascarpone cheese mixed with honey and passionfruit) into the gallon-size food storage bag inside the plastic cup.  Lift the filled bag from the plastic cup (used to just stabilize the plastic bag while you are filling it) and using your fingers and hands, push the filling down into one corner of the bag, twisting the bag like a pastry bag to get all the air out.  Then, use scissors to snip the end (be careful not to make the hole too big) and now you have a pastry bag full of goodness to make your creation prettier.

So, I dedicate this post to Sandra, who taught me so much about cooking and tablescapes and to Vanessa and Sita who taught me ways to use a fruit I’d never thought to consider buying.  After all, who would buy an ugly, dark, wrinkly-looking fruit, that when you pick it up, seems to weigh nothing?

Here’s the recipe:

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Tootles,

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