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Pluots add sweet-tart crunch to salad

Recipe: Dish combines fresh fruit with dried cranberries, walnuts

Pluot salad
Add tangy flavor to a summer salad with wedges of pluots. The fruit is a hybrid
of apricots and plums. (Photos: Debbie Arrington)


Pluots can puzzle people. Sure, they're sweet-tart and crunchy, wonderful eaten fresh out of hand.

But what can you do with them?

Thanks to hybridizer Dave Wilson Nursery, dozens of pluots and close cousins apriums and plumcots are now available. Known as interspecific plums, these mixed varieties include plums and apricots in their parentage. But how that cross turns out can be amazingly different. That gives each variety unique characteristics.

Pluots range in skin color from pale yellow-green to darkest plum purple, often with contrasting flesh. The inherent blend of apricot and plum makes a wonderful jam as well as tarts and dessert fillings.

That sweet-tart-crunchy combo also is perfect for a fresh summer salad. The variety used for this recipe was Emerald Drop, which has very pretty yellow-green skin with tangy apricot-like flesh. But any pluot or aprium or plumcot would be tasty, too.

Two green pluots
These are Emerald Drop pluots but any variety of pluot
or aprium will do.

Pluot salad
Makes 3 servings

Ingredients:

3 pluots, pitted and cut into thin wedges
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped
2 cups romaine lettuce, chopped
1/2 cup cabbage, shredded

For dressing:
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon pear balsamic vinegar (or other fruity balsamic)
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Salad on plate
A refreshing salad, perfect for summer.
Instructions:
In a large bowl, combine pluots, dried cranberries, walnuts, lettuce and cabbage.

Make dressing. In a jar, combine all dressing ingredients. Cover and shake.

Drizzle dressing over salad ingredients and toss gently. Serve.

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RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

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Garden Checklist for week of May 19

Temperatures will be a bit higher than normal in the afternoons this week. Take care of chores early in the day – then enjoy the afternoon. It’s time to smell the roses.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. If you haven’t already, it’s time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.

* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Don’t forget to water. Seedlings need moisture. Deep watering will help build strong roots and healthy plants.

* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.

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