Poached Apricots

Poached fruit isn't something I've ever had before, but when I saw White on Rice Couple's post about poached apricots (and their beautiful pictures) I was immediately intrigued. Joey likes stone fruit but he is allergic to it when it isn't cooked. Unfortunately, cooked stone fruit is usually in pie or cobbler or buckle or something else that is generally not healthy. Poached fruit is made in a sugar syrup, so it's not really GOOD for you, but there's no crust involved.

These apricots were absolutely fantastic! I loved the flavors that soaked into the fruit, I loved the texture, I loved how they tasted with ice cream, I loved them warm, I loved them room temperature, I think I would love them cold. I think I will make these all summer and maybe try it with other stone fruit!

The caramel sauce that I was supposed to make by reducing the liquid just didn't turn out...it burned, it became one solid piece of dark dark brown candy that was gross looking. It made our house smell disgusting. It was totally my fault, I didn't want to stand there watching it. I bet the sauce would've been as delicious as the apricots. I served a little goat's milk caramel sauce with ours instead but it totally wasn't necessary. Do yourself a favor and poach some fruit today!

I halved the recipe because I only had 10oz of apricots. My apricots were maybe a tad on the too-ripe side for this recipe. I bought them and then delayed in making them because we decided we'd pair them with homemade vanilla bean ice cream.  When we finally made the ice cream, the apricots were READY. By the time I had time to make them, I'd already lost two and had to put them in the fridge.

Ingredients
1/8 C honey
3/4 C sugar (I used vanilla sugar because we just made some with our leftover vanilla bean from the ice cream, it might have added something)
3/4 C water
scant handful of basil (we're growing our own!)
10oz apricots
vanilla ice cream

Directions
1. Combine honey, sugar, basil and water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. (this will be fast)
2. Slice apricots in half and remove pits and stems.
3. Reduce heat to medium high and add apricots. Poach 2-4 minutes until soft but still intact
4. Remove fruit to a plate to cool
5. This is where you should read the directions again over on WoRC's blog and try to make the reduction. Since it didn't work for me my only advice is WATCH IT THE WHOLE TIME.
6. Serve the apricots over ice cream and lick the plate clean of the best simple syrup you've ever had.