Main Ingredients:

See below ingredients and instructions of the recipe

Cooking Preparation of the Recipe:

12 oz Apple juice Nutmeg
-concentrate (one can) 2 C Yogurt, unflavored
2 Peaches or nectarines Honey
1 Cantaloupe wedge Sherry (or other
2 Apricots - sweet wine)
12 Strawberries 12 oz Grape juice
1 sm Lemon - concentrate (one can)
1 sm Lime 4 Violets or other
1/2 t Mint (dried flakes) - small non-toxic flowers
Cinnamon

Wash and peel the peaches, cantaloupe and apricots. Wash and hull the
strawberries and set aside the 4 nicest ones. Peaches and apricots peel
more easily if you dip them in boiling water for a few seconds before
peeling. Try not to lose any juice from the fruit.

Put half of the fruit into the bowl of a food processor and puree. You
could also use a food mill for this. Put the pureed fruit into a bowl and
add the apple juice concentrate, an equal quantity of water, the juice of
the lemon and of the lime, the mint flakes, a sprinkle each of cinnamon and
nutmeg, and half of the yogurt. Whisk together well. Add several glugs of
sherry and honey to taste. (It shouldn't be very sweet, a couple spoonfuls
should do it.)

Put the rest of the fruit in the food processor and pulse until well
chopped but with recognizable chunks of fruit still visible. Put this into
a different bowl and mix some of the first mixture into it so the fruit
doesn't turn brown. Put both bowls in the refrigerator for at least half an
hour.

When you're ready to serve, divide the chunky fruit into 4 soup bowls. Fill
each bowl almost to the rim with the soup. Pour the grape juice
concentrate into a creamer or small pitcher and carefully pour two
concentric circles of grape juice into each bowl. Take a chopstick or
similar sized utensil and draw it through each bowl several times
alternating from the center to the edge and from the edge to the center,
lifting the chopstick after each stroke. This should turn the rings of
grape juice into sort of a zigzag pattern. Stir up the remaining yogurt
well and put a little mound of yogurt into each bowl. (The yogurt will
probably sink. Put more in until you get a mound!) Slice the 4 reserved
strawberries thinly and surround each mound of yogurt with strawberry
slices. Top each mound of yogurt with a flower and get ready for the oohs
and ahs.

You can substitute any fruit that you want, but use strong tasting fruits
like pineapple in moderation or they will take over the soup. Bananas are
nice; cherries are wonderful but impossible to peel. Plums and other fruits
with very mild flavors tend to get lost in the shuffle. The juice
concentrates can be replaced with regular juices; vary them if you like,
also. There's an apple-pear-grape juice combination that's delicious as
the base and cranberry juice is nice as the contrasting color. Or, use a
darker juice for the base and something lighter in color like orange juice
to make the rings. Cherries or mint leaves make attractive garnishes.

NOTES:

* Fresh fruit soup -- This is a simple, delicious soup, perfect for a hot
summer day. It is based upon a recipe in "The Moosewood Cookbook" by
Mollie Katzen. This describes what emerged last time I made it; vary any or
all of the ingredients freely. I've included some suggestions at the end.

* Of course you don't have to go through all the special presentation
work, but it really doesn't take that much time and it makes the result
into something special. Doing the fruit in two steps is strictly optional;
if you're not going to make the ring pattern you may as well just process
it all at once and stop before it's completely pureed.

: Difficulty: moderate.
: Time: 20 minutes preparation, 30 minutes chilling, 10 minutes
presentation.
: Precision: no need to measure.

: Paul Asente
: Stanford University
: asente#su-cascade.arpa decwrl!glacier!cascade!asente

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