LESLIE BUDEWITZ: Move over, Avocado Toast, and make room for a new friend.
Readers sometimes ask where we get our recipes, and my usual answer is something like “anywhere and everywhere.” I found this one in a free magazine I picked up at the natural food store. It’s easy and yummy. We served it with dinner the first time, and since I had a little ricotta and two roasted apricot halves left over, I plopped them onto toast the next morning. They are also terrific for an easy summer brunch.
Zest is one of those small things that pack a big flavor punch. A few years ago, my BFF was visiting and sat at my kitchen counter while I cooked. Could she help, she asked. Zest this orange, I replied, and handed her a cutting board, an orange, and a box grater. She was not impressed. The next day, she and her husband visited the local kitchen shop and brought me a microplane. This is why we’ve been BFF since we met at 19.
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| Save a beauty like this Avocado Toast for another day -- and season! |
I popped the toast into the oven after the fruit came out, but used a regular toaster the next morning; both worked beautifully. Some recipes I’ve seen call for oiling the toast before topping. Not necessary, though if I were following another recipe suggestion and using prosciutto, I’d oil the hot toast, lay down the prosciutto, then spread the ricotta and top with fruit and thyme. If we had a toaster oven, I’d use it for both the fruit and the toast, and oil the bread first.
If your loaf of bread is bigger than mine, you may fit more apricot halves on each slice. We’re now making extra and planning ahead while fresh apricots are still available!
PS: I finally figured out how to embed a PDF of the recipe for easy printing.
Scroll down to the 💕 for the link.
Roasted Apricot and Ricotta Toast
For the apricots:
4 fresh apricots, halved and pitted
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
4 sprigs fresh thyme
For the ricotta:
1/2 cup ricotta, whole or part-skim
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 slices sourdough bread, toasted
Heat oven to 375 degrees. (A toaster oven would work nicely.)
Place apricots on a small baking sheet, cut-side up. Drizzle with oil and honey. Top with the thyme sprigs. Roast until the fruit is soft and lightly caramelized, about 15 minutes. Remove from oven.
While the fruit is roasting, place the ricotta in a mall bowl. Add the honey and zest and mix well.
Toast the bread.
Spread with ricotta and top with roasted fruit. Use your fingers to strip the thyme leaves onto the fruit. (They might seem too dry and crunchy to eat, but they soften quickly.)
Enjoy -- and repeat!
At Seattle Spice Shop, owner Pepper Reece has whipped up the perfect blend of food, friends, and flavor. But the sweet smell of success can be hazardous . . .
Spring is in full bloom in Pike Place Market, where Pepper is celebrating lavender’s culinary uses and planning a festival she hopes will become an annual event. When her friend Lavender Liz offers to share tips for promoting the much-loved—and occasionally maligned—herb, Pepper makes a trek to the charming town of Salmon Falls. But someone has badly damaged Liz’s greenhouse, throwing a wrench in the feisty grower’s plans for expansion. Suspicions quickly focus on an employee who’s taken to the hills.
Then Liz is found dead among her precious plants, stabbed by a pruning knife. In Salmon Falls, there’s one in every pocket.
Pepper digs in, untangling the tensions between Liz and a local restaurateur with eyes on a picturesque but neglected farm, a jealous ex-boyfriend determined to profit from Liz’s success, and a local growers’ cooperative. She’s also hot on the scent of a trail of her own, sniffing out the history of her sweet dog, Arf.
As Pepper’s questions threaten to unearth secrets others desperately want to keep buried, danger creeps closer to her and those she loves. Can Pepper root out the killer, before someone nips her in the bud?
ALL GOD'S SPARROWS AND OTHER STORIES: A STAGECOACH MARY FIELDS COLLECTION, now available in in paperback and ebook
Take a step back in time with All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection of historical short mysteries, featuring the Agatha-Award winning "All God's Sparrows" and other stories imagining the life of real-life historical figure Mary Fields, born into slavery in 1832, during the last thirty years of her life, in Montana. Out September 17, 2024 from Beyond the Page Publishing.
“Finely researched and richly detailed, All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories is a wonderful collection. I loved learning about this fascinating woman . . . and what a character she is! Kudos to Leslie Budewitz for bringing her to life so vividly.” —Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of Crow Mary
Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!
Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently
Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest books are
To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop Mystery and
All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, in September 2024. Watch for
Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th Spice Shop Mystery, on July 15, 2025.
A past president of Sisters in Crime and former national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine.
Swing by Leslie's website and join the mailing list for her seasonal newsletter. And join her on Facebook where she shares book news and giveaways from her writer friends, and talks about food, mysteries, and the things that inspire her.
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