Fruit salad for New Year's Eve

It is a hot summer.  Too hot.  When we have a few days in the 30s I just want to eat fruit and drink water.  Meals sort of fall off the radar.  New Year's Eve was hot.  And I had lots of fruit about.  So we had fruit salad for dessert. 

A few days before New Year's Eve, we went to a potluck picnic brunch.  I took along cashew cheese stuffed dates on a fruit platter.  I knew that Sylvia would eat some fruit if nothing else except Mr Nice Guy cinnamon buns and perhaps some tofu bacon.  And it seems a shame not to enjoy summer fruit at its peak.

I bought more fruit than I needed.  So it was fruit salad for dessert on New Year's Eve.  It has been too long since I last made one and many years since I blogged any.  I cut up some fruit in the afternoon and soaked it in orange juice and maple syrup.  So simple.  So delicious.  So refreshing.

We had dinner on New Year's Eve at home.  I made haggis nachos.  We drank Maiden's Press non-alcoholic sparkling grape juice with it.  Sylvia refuses to eat the haggis so she spread tomato paste on her corn chips and sprinkled them with cheese to make her special pizza nachos.

The nachos were so filling that I was glad to have fruit salad for dessert.  It was served with some vanilla ice cream and/or a Darrell Leigh chocolate covered coconut nougat in a pudding shape.   A fitting meal to see out the old year.  I loved the fruit salad.  E was less impressed and Sylvia wanted to just eat the apricots.

We went to my parents' for lunch on New Year's Day.  I took some leftover fruit salad because we had so much leftover.  We ate it with stollen, cheese and crackers, and some watermelon wedges.  Then we broke open the gingerbread house.  Which after a roast dinner was quite an impressive meal to see in the new year.

The festive period is receding into the past rapidly.  Our Christmas tree has been put out to be chopped up for green waste.  The decorations are in bags ready to be put into storage.  But before we forget the festivities altogether, I have a few random moments to share:

• Being breathalysed right after school drop off a week before Christmas Day.
• My brother coined the term "pav and run", which made me laugh.  It did not refer to his crazy midday run in sweltering temperatures on Christmas Day.  It meant grabbing a large slice of my mum's pavlova and running out the door to his partner's place.  
• E was reeling from being accosted by my uncle about how we need coal power.  Ironically the next day I was in a conversation where everyone seemed to have solar power.
• Attending a country funeral just after New Year's Day.  It was conducted in the cemetery on a warm day under a shady oak tree with a coffin strewn with flowers and friends singing acapella.  So sad but really beautiful too.

I am sending this fruit salad to Healthy Vegan Fridays and the No Waste Food Challenge.

More fruity desserts on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
Choc-nut banana and fruit kebabs (gf, v)
Watermelon monster (gf, v)  
Pine-berry fruit salad (gf, v)
Rainbow fruit kebabs (gf, v)
Red fruit salad (gf, v)
Strawberry soup (gf, v)
Summer fruit salad (gf, v)

Fruit salad
Serves 6-8, maybe more

2 large peaches, chopped
3 kiwi fruit, diced
1 handful of grapes
4 apricots, chopped
125g punnet of blueberries
125g punnet of raspberries 
1 slice of watermelon, chopped (about a cup)
juice of 1 orange
1 tbsp maple syrup

Mix everything and serve.  Or make a day ahead and keep in the fridge.  I think it improves with sitting for an hour or so, which means it is good to make before dinner.  Make sure to stir through before serving so all the fruit has some orange juice and maple syrup over it.

On the Stereo:
Shine a Light: field recordings from the great American railroad: Billy Bragg and Joe Henry