Summer Sunset Fruit Salad

Today I gift you with a recipe for my all-time favorite fruit salad. I call it "Summer Sunset Fruit Salad" because the colors just scream fiery summer sunset: luscious kiss-red strawberries, bright orange clementine segments, and blushing pieces of ripe peach. Oh, and cream. Heavy cream. I'll say that's the clouds. In the sunset. You can't have a sunset without clouds...or cream.


Summer Sunset Fruit Salad:
(Sufficient for two as a side dish or snack, but easily edible by one)


Ingredients:
-1 large ripe peach
-5-8 ripe strawberries (depending on size)
-1 clementine, tangerine, or orange
-1 tbs agave nectar, honey, maple syrup, or sugar. (I recommend a liquid sweetener both for ease of mixing and for health reasons.)

We interrupt this recipe for an important announcement:

If you've never had agave nectar you have to try it! It's a minimally refined, all natural sweetener that has a low glycemic index, so it's safe for diabetics and dieters. I use it in everything from coffee to pumpkin pie. I'd almost say it's a miracle food; it's that good. Sorry, tangent over!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled recipe:

Lastly,
-2 tbs heavy cream (Or half and half if you have some self control [I don't])

Directions:
1) De-stem the strawberries and irregularly chop them into bite-sized pieces. Place them in a bowl.

2) De-pit the peach and chop into bite-size, irregular pieces. Add them to the bowl too.

3)Here's the fun part. Cut the clementine/tangerine/orange like this:



...and add the pretty little skinless slices to the bowl.

(Why did I make you skin the citrus you might ask? Because citrus fruits have a lot of tough skin on them, silly! If we had left that on your salad would require significantly more chewing. Plus this makes the juice more accessible, YUM! But you can leave them on if you want, I won't be mad.)

4)Reserve the membrane with all the orange bits on it.

5) Now mix your favorite sweetener with the half and half or cream.

6) Squish the juice out of the membrane and into the sweetened cream. (see Fig. 5, above)

7) Pour the orange-infused sweet cream over the salad.

8) Grab a spoon and toss it all together.

9) Devour!!*


Now go forth and make fruit salad!


*If you can resist devouring this for about 5 minutes, let it sit and the flavors infuse and the juices start to come out and it becomes amazing. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Which makes me sad because there are no peaches in the house...