A great summer for stone fruits

Don’t ask my why, but this seems to be an extraordinarily good year for stone fruits. The cherries, plums, peaches, pluots (a hybrid fruit, part plum, part apricot), nectarines, apricots (the list goes on!) at farmstands and grocery stores this month are beautifully colored, firm, flavorful and fragrant.

You’re probably not thinking about vitamin C at this time of year, since it isn’t cold season, but all the stone fruits (and summer berries, of course) are loaded with C — which doesn’t just fight colds; it’s also one of the most potent cancer-fighting antioxidants.

Most stone fruits have potassium, which fortifies your muscles and helps ward off leg cramps on hot days.

They have lots of fiber, which helps keep your digestive tract clean and healthy.  It also means that, even though they are very sweet, they will release their sugars slowly into your system (making them a perfect snack food).

Plums (and their dried cousins, the prune) also help your body absorb iron; and they have been shown to have an abundance of the phenols that specifically protect brain cells and neurons.

And who knew you needed it but stone fruits have lutein and zeaxanthin, which help protect your eyes from cataracts and macular degeneration.

Cherries help fight inflammation, too, which means they can help ward off the swelling of arthritis.

It’s hard to imagine that you could ever tire of eating stone fruits “as is,� since the season is so short. But in case you get tired of all that fruit juice dripping down your arm, try baking or cooking down your fruit on the stovetop.

I’ve found this to be especially helpful when I’m making fruit pies and cobblers. When the fruit is as incredibly juicy as it is this year, it can  water down your baked goods. I don’t really like to use thickening agents. But I’ve found I don’t need to add any flour, corn starch or tapioca if I precook the fruit until the juices reduce — and you have more control over the texture of your fruit as well.

I also find that prebaking the shell helps. It might seem like this adds extra steps, but if you’re going to go to the trouble of making a pie, why not have it come out just the way you want it?

Marsden Epworth, editor of the Compass arts and entertainment section of The Lakeville Journal, recommends adding 2 cups of red wine and some sugar to your (non-reactive) saucepan along with about 2 cups of fruit.

Reduce it all down until you have a syrupy glazed potload of fruit. Then spread it all over prebacked puff pastry circles (bake them between two cookie sheets to keep them from puffing) and bake for a few more minutes, until you have enticing rustic stone fruit tarts.