fig season

My fig tree generally gives two crops a year, and this year that first one was a huge bumper crop. So I spent the last week using all the figs. I gathered two large bowls without even breaking out the ladder. One bowl was around 9-10lbs of figs… And the second crop should be ready in the fall! I am rich with figs (though not Figma, as I couldn’t get IPO shares. Ah well, c’est la vie).

I set aside a portion of good-looking smaller figs, to eat as breakfast (mashed on toast with chevre & honey) and for use in this recipe for chicken thighs with figs.

I stemmed, quartered and dehydrated a full batch in the dehydrator, ~6 hours at 135F. Then I put these in the food processor with a couple fresh figs, some honey, and some lemon juice to make the filling for fig newtons. I followed this recipe for the filling & the dough, they turned out pretty well! The only thing I changed was I didn’t use orange zest, because I’m lazy and didn’t have oranges.

The bulk of the figs went towards jam. I made two batches using this recipe, one with rosemary added. Amazingly decadent. This gave me about ~125oz of jam, or 8 mason jars worth.

I made a couple fig galettes as well, very simple with frozen puff pastry from the store. Let it thaw, spread some chevre & fig jam, top with quartered figs, fold the edges & bake for 45min @ 375. super easy and delicious.

Somewhat surprisingly, my favorite dish was a fig and prosciutto pizza, which was an interesting departure from the pizza I normally make, using fig jam as the sauce base. The prosciutto fig pairing is such a classic, and the saltiness works so well with the sweetness from the jam and fresh figs.

I feel bad for people who decide not to eat figs because they’re squeamish about the wasps or whatever. Figs are so friggin good.