June is the first official month of summer. It is a great month to start taking advantage of fresh produce from local growers. You can use this fresh produce to make parve Jewish recipes. If you don’t know what a parve recipe is, it is simply a recipe that is made without animal products.
A simple parve recipe that you can make is a compote. A compote is a fruit stew. You can serve this fruit stew as a stand alone treat, you can use it as a spread or your can use it as a topping for a desert. Fruits that work well in compotes include rhubarb, strawberries, grapes, pineapple, berries, peaches and pears.
Another simple parve dish that you can make is poached fruit. Poaching fuit enhances the natural sweetness of the fruit and makes it more of a dessert than raw fruit. Fruits that can be poached include pears and apples. You can serve these fruits plain, with their own juice or you can create a caramel glaze. A chocolate sauce can also be very tasty when served over poached fruit. You can make this sauce healthier by using a sugar free recipe.
If you want a parve desert that has a dairy flare then make dairy dishes with soy milk instead of cow’s milk. Soy milk is lower in fat, it is a good source of fiber and it is a good source of calcium. Soy milk can be purchased in a variety of flavors from mocha to chocolate to plain.
Fruit is sweet and fresh and full of vitamins. If you want to infuse your diet with the nutrition offered by fruit, but you don’t like to eat whole fruit then consider turning your fresh summer fruit into fruit juice or a fruit juice smoothie.