The stand is growing!

It’s finally starting to feel more like summer around here. While today might be a bit dreary, I welcomed the rain and I know the gardens did too. The weather has started to heat up and the veggies are beginning to grow so fast we can hardly harvest quick enough. We have a lot coming off the farm right now as well as a bunch of new items from local producers (like gemelli pasta from Bellingham Pasta Co., Chili-Chive Gouda and more Vache cream cheese from Samish Bay Cheese) so check the online farm stand for the most up-to-date inventory. Here are some more highlights …

We have two types of beautiful organic cherries from Cloud Mountain Farm Center, blush sweet cherries (a Raineer type) and dark red sweet cherries. Woweee are these gorgeous! We only ordered a limited amount so don’t delay if you love cherries!

BOUQUETS!

After a bit of a rough start due to some less-than-ideal potting soil our flower garden is popping. And the bouquets are a wonderful collection of deep magenta poppies, sunflowers, ageratum, strawflowers, dahlias, cupcake cosmos and more! The bouquets are ever changing as new flowers start to bloom so I’m having a lot of fun designing these for you all.

NEW POTATOES

We have new potatoes that we just dug this week. You might be wondering, “what are new potatoes?”
They are young potatoes that have very thin skins, a crisp and waxy interior, and tend to be sweeter than an older potatoes because their sugar has not been converted into starch yet. They are the equivalent of a baby potato. Our new potatoes are a mixture of red, yellow fingerlings, and bright purple potatoes. You’ll get a 12 oz bag of small potatoes that are super delicious roasted or boiled. We just ate some roasted yester and included them on a veggies plate with Caesar dressing.

BAGELS & BIALYS! Deadlines be gone!

If you missed our last email, we wanted to remind you that there are no more hard-to-remember bagel deadlines. You have until noon on Friday (tomorrow) to order your bagels for same-day pickup! The only catch is that we are ordering based on past demand so when we sell out, we sell out. AND we’re now selling bialys too.

New system at the stand with fridges

Our fridges are becoming pretty packed with your orders (thank you!) so we’ve devised a new system at the stand. Your orders will now be organized alphabetically by last name. This will make it easier for you to find your order and will also fulfill our passion for all things neat and tidy ;)
Check the signs next to the fridges!

Radish Leaf Soup - Recipe Recommendation

We love this Radish Leaf Soup from David Lebovitz. It is a tasty combination of assertive radish greens, garlic, and creamy potato. Our radish bunches are 1lb and have all the greens. You can also use arugula in addition to the radish leaves. Enjoy!

Summertime at Full Bloom Farm

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity here on the farm and I wanted to take a moment to send a note of thanks to all of you. We’ve received wonderful feedback and appreciate your shopping with us.

Some of you have asked if we plan to continue online ordering only and the answer is yes, for the foreseeable future! While it is a different experience to shop online for food, I’m sure many of you are getting used to this new normal and appreciate the sense of safety and convenience it provides. From bagels to strawberries, cheese, pasta, flour and salmon, we’re offering an array of high-quality, locally produced options in addition to our fresh produce, eggs, and salt from the farm. A number of our customers have mentioned that they regularly check our product availability online before heading to town - minimizing possible exposures and supporting our local island business.

All this to say thank you! The farm is entering full swing and we’re really just at the beginning of an abundant wave of fruit, flowers, produce and more, yet to come.

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MORE STRAWBERRIES

We’re getting strawberries again from Cloud Mountain Farm Center. These sold out quickly last week so if you missed them, don’t delay. The strawberries are sweet, fragrant, juicy, and ripe all the way through - they are some of the best I’ve had.

Cloud Mountain strawberries are available in limited quantities and I think it’s unlikely you will find them at other stores. They also grow strawberries organically, which means they don’t spray with synthetic pesticides or herbicides, so you can rest assured that your berries are good for you and the environment.

SEA SALT FROM THE SALISH SEA

Mark harvested his first load of salt recently from the solar-evaporator and it’s beautiful and pristine. He and Roger have improved a couple of things this year to speed up the process and refine the salt a bit. We’ll write more about that soon, but for now it’s on the stand for all of you!

We can’t wait to sprinkle this on our tomatoes when they are ripe and drizzle with good olive oil. We’ll also be using our salt to make pickles and other fermented goods when our cucumbers and cabbage are ready - soon!

FARMHOUSE GRANOLA

We’ve also started stocking our Farmhouse Granola. We love this granola because it’s the perfect balance of salty/sweet - we use maple syrup and brown sugar to sweeten and our solar-evaporated sea salt Mark makes from Salish Sea water. It’s full of toasted sunflower & pumpkin seeds, crisp coconut flakes and lightly spiced with coriander and cinnamon. It is also nut-free, gluten-free, and vegan.

A handful of this granola is a quick fix for a little snack, but it’s even better with fresh berries and yogurt or milk!

HOMEMADE BOURSIN

Have you tried the “Vache” cream cheese from Samish Bay Cheese yet?

It is very creamy, slightly tangy, light and spreadable. We’ve been making all kinds of spreads with it and Livie recently mixed it with a bunch of chopped herbs from the garden (parsley, rosemary, thyme, sage, savory) green onion and garlic, lemon zest, salt and pepper. It tastes like Boursin! We had it in an omelet this morning with our sautéeing greens and it was wildly delicious.

Next we’re going to try making a Basque Burnt Cheesecake with the Vache cream cheese. We’ll report back on how it turns out.

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And finally I’ll end with this giant Swallowtail Butterfly who we saw taking a rest on one of our sunflowers.

Spring Recipes & More

It’s June all over the place!  Peonies are at their peak – and will be done by the end of the month – why, oh why can’t we have them longer?! For the same reason snow peas are so precious and prized – their season is brief. And we will have peas this week! So some comfort in that. And we are getting organic strawberries from Pure Nelida Farm in Skagit Valley and have them available for preorder now (pickup Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri) next week). To learn more about Pure Nelida Farm, I encourage you to read their story on their website here

Projects and experiments

We’ve accomplished a lot of projects already this season on the farm. And now we’re experimenting with new soil and weed management techniques using stale seed bed methods and tarping, growing tomatoes in low tunnels, beginning some research on dilute sea water for fertilizer, and testing different kinds of eye coverings to try to sleep in past 5:30am.

The chickens have done their first full rotation in the pasture and are returning to a lush. green grass. We’re very pleased with the chicken tractor that Livie & Roger built earlier this season and have a lot of ideas for the second one we build. Roger has said that he will write a post for everyone about the chicken tractor in case anyone is interested in more of the finer details and specific products we incorporated into it (like the automatic door and rollaway lay boxes). Mark and Roger are working on improving the solar evaporator too so that we can offer more salt this year. Stay tuned for a post about that in the near future as we learn more.

Now for some recipes …

Many of you have sent me notes to tell me what you’ve been cooking and have asked for more recipes, so here we go (some are mine, written below, and others are linked).

The first is a simple, but essential salad dressing recipe. Our salad greens are nonstop right now. Look for the delicious, umami taste of chrysanthemum leaf (the vegetable, not the flower) and red and green Mizuna in your salad greens starting this week.

Our salad dressing – makes 1.25 cup

¼ cup vinegar (red, white, champagne, whatever you have)

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic, smashed with side of knife

2 T grated Parmesan cheese

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp ground black pepper

1 T Dijon mustard

1 tsp dry oregano (optional)

Zap all ingredients in a food processor or put in a jar and shake it up.

Makes enough for several salads and lasts a long time if you store it in the fridge. If you store it in the fridge, make sure to remove it about 20 minutes before you’d like to use it to allow the oil to soften so you can shake it up before dressing your salad.

 In addition to the above salad dressing, we also like this radish leaf dressing from Dorie Greenspan!

Beets and Tokyo turnips are here and combined with baby carrots make an unforgettable butter and honey glazed braise

Not a recipe, but how about some inspiration? We just heard from one of our customers who made beans with beet greens and served it with homemade Merguez sausage. Yum!

Ok, onto the next recipe …

Smoked Salmon Pasta - serves 4

4 oz smoked salmon

2T olive oil

2 Medium shallots, chopped fine

Dry white wine - 3/4 cup

Cream - 1 1/2 cups

Water from pasta to thin sauce

Lemon juice 1T

Lemon peel, grated 1 tsp

Fresh dill, 3 T chopped, plus sprigs for garnish

Pasta 8 oz – linguine preferred

Instructions:

Break up smoked salmon into large flakes. Heat olive oil and sauté shallot until soft.  Add white wine and reduce over medium heat until syrupy.  Meanwhile, add pasta to boiling, well-salted water and cook for 1 minute less than the package instructs. You’ll want your pasta just underdone because you’re going to cook it in the sauce a bit. When finished, drain, RESERVING 2 cups of the cooking water.

Add cream and 1 cup water to mixture in sauté pan and return to medium heat. Add cooked pasta to pan. Let mixture thicken and reduce slightly, adding more water to reach a saucy consistency and stirring to evenly coat & finish cooking the pasta.  Add salmon, lemon zest, lemon juice, & chopped dill. Let heat briefly and serve on warm plates with dill sprigs for garnish.

 And Livie’s favorite way to enjoy smoked salmon.

Smoked Salmon Cream Cheese Spread

2 oz smoked salmon

8 oz cream cheese

1 T capers, rinsed and slightly chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

3 or 4 sprigs of fresh dill, chopped

1 T chopped red onion, shallot, green onion, or chives

Small squeeze of lemon juice

Mix all ingredients together and schmear on toasted bagel.

Bagelry Bagels!!

The bagel delivery was a hit! At long last the fantastically good bagels of The Bagelry are ours to savor once again.  Get your order in to us by this Monday at 8AM (or earlier) for next Friday delivery to the stand.

We are harvesting and planting as fast as we can.  Cauliflower and cabbage, Napa and broccoli, corn, peppers, tomatoes (of course), squash, and cukes are looking large in our future. So that also means pickles, kimchi, sauerkraut, and other ferments will join sauces, jams and jellies in our pantries later this summer.

Coming this Wednesday, we’ll have spinach back in stock, along with parsley, and the gourmet mushroom mix with Lion’s Mane, Oyster, and Shiitake mushrooms.

We have a couple of surprises coming, too. Stay tuned …

Things to look forward to ...

BAGELS!

We are excited to offer The Bagelry Bagels through our online farm stand for pre-order! We’ve been buying bagels from The Bagelry in Bellingham since they opened in 1984 and we think they are the best bagels on Earth. Like a lot of other small businesses, The Bagelry has been significantly impacted by COVID, but they have decided to safely reopen for pickup on a very limited schedule. We’ve missed being able to enjoy their bagels and were relieved to hear of their limited reopening. We thought that since we were going to town for our own bagels, we might easily pick them up for all of you, too. Starting this afternoon (Friday), we will also be selling a special spreadable cheese called “Vache” from Samish Bay Cheese. It is similar to cream cheese, but better (it won the American Cheese Society First Place prize).

You can choose between a bag of 6 bagels or a bakers dozen (13) in any combination of flavors you wish (Plain, Sesame, Everything, Salt, Garlic, Onion, & Poppy Seed). We’ll be making the trek to Bellingham on Fridays to pick up the freshly-baked bagels. If you want to stock up, Bagelry Bagels freeze amazingly well too!

Order by 8am on Mondays for pickup on Friday evening.

STRAWBERRIES

Also available right now are Albion strawberries from Silva Family Farm located in Oak Harbor, Washington who specialize in certified organic strawberries and blueberries. The farm’s proprietors , Pablo and Maura Silva, have been working on local farms for over 20 years and are now in their second season of growing strawberries, with the help of their children.

As of this moment (Friday morning) we only have 3 pints left!

NEW FLOUR FROM CAIRNSPRING MILLS

We’ve been baking bread with Cairnspring Mills Trailblazer and loving it, so we decided to test another variety they offer which they call “Expresso” Bread Flour. The dough was a lot of fun to work with and it seemed a bit stronger and more extensible than the Trailblazer. The resulting bread has a nutty almost chocolatey aroma and the crust is darker. We can’t decide if we like one over the other, but you should let us know what you think and send us your bread or other baking project pictures. We’d love to see what you’ve been making!

NEW ON THE FARM

Peonies, dill, cilantro, mixed radishes, Tokyo turnips and mixed lettuces are just some of the veggies we’ve been harvesting lately as the weather heats up and the days grow longer. Summer squash and cucumbers are planted, melons are coming along, successions of beans, carrots, beets, and more are going in, and the tomatoes & peppers are well on their way.

TURNIP LOVE + RECIPE RECOMMENDATION

We grew Tokyo turnips for the first time this year and are thrilled with the results. They have pure white globes, the flesh and skin of the turnip is incredibly tender, juicy and sweet, and the greens are succulent and very mildly flavored. We’re enjoying both the root and the greens. Livie grilled and tossed them in miso butter - yum! We also recently loved a recipe on NYTimes Cooking for Mashed Turnips and Potatoes with Turnip Greens. We served it with beautiful Hillcrest Farm pork chops and creamy pan sauce made with apple cider vinegar (also from Hillcrest Farm), mustard, dill and a touch of cream to bring it together.

We hope you all are happy & healthy!

Spring Vegetable Risotto with Pernod, Grilled Prawns, and Preserved Lemon

This risotto is full of flavor and excellent paired with local prawns or shrimp. If you’ve never cooked with Pernod before, you are in for a treat. Investing in a bottle is worth it because there are many recipes, especially those with seafood, that are greatly improved with the addition of this delicious spirit. If you don’t have Pernod you could use Pastis, Ricard, Herbsaint or another kind of anisette. It has a licorice/anise flavor, but most of those strong notes mellow out when cooked. You could use Pernod in a salmon dish with fennel, stir it into Bouillabaisse, or use it when steaming mussels among many other applications.

I came across this recipe on Food52 and have altered a couple things and rewritten it below in an easier format to follow. If you don’t have preserved lemon, you can add a teaspoon of lemon zest and a sprinkle of salt as a replacement, but preserved lemon is really delicious.

It’s important to prepare and organize all your components first. Risotto requires that you stir it very frequently so multitasking is difficult.

I’ve organized the directions to help with this workflow.

“Mise en place”, as the French say!

Serves 4

Ingredients

Risotto

1/8 cup olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small fennel bulb, chopped (save some of the frilly tops for garnish if you have)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup Arborio or Carnaroli rice
1/4 cup Pernod, or other anise apéritif
1/4 cup lemon juice (if using crème fraîche, reduce to 1/8 cup)
4-5 cups hot chicken stock
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup mascarpone (or crème fraîche)
1 tablespoon rinsed and minced preserved lemon
1/8 cup coarsely chopped mint leaves
1 cup peas
1/2 bunch asparagus

Shrimp

16 large de-veined shrimp, shell on
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon Pernod, or other anise apéritif
2 cloves of garlic, minced.
Zest of half a large lemon
1 teaspoons finely chopped rosemary leaves
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Get your “mise en place” prepared …

For the Risotto:

• Put the onion, fennel, and garlic in a bowl.

• Heat the broth to a simmer and reduce heat to low.

• In a 10-12” fry pan measure out your olive oil

• Measure out the Pernod and lemon juice into a small bowl and set it near the fry pan

• Measure out the mascarpone, peas, and butter into a bowl and set near fry pan.

• Place the asparagus on a plate and drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and roll the asparagus to coat

For the Shrimp:

• Put the garlic, rosemary shrimp, olive oil, Pernod, and lemon zest in a bowl big enough to mix everything together. Toss the shrimp to coat in the marinade and set aside next to the asparagus. Both the shrimp and the asparagus will be grilled

• If you’re using a charcoal grill, get the coals started before you begin cooking your risotto so that the fire is ready when the risotto is finished cooking.

Let’s get cooking!

1. Heat the pan with the oil over medium heat and add the bowl of onion, fennel, and garlic. Sauté for about 5-7 minutes or until translucent.

2. Add Carnaroli rice to the pan and cook, stirring to lightly toast the rice and coat evenly in oil, 2-3 minutes. It will look slightly translucent.

3. Increase the heat to medium high heat and add the lemon juice and Pernod, stirring to release any bits of vegetable that may have stuck to the pan. Cook, stirring, for about 30 seconds or until most of liquid has evaporated

4. Add a ladle of hot broth and stir through the rice. Once the broth has been absorbed, add another ladle and stir through the entire pan. Continue this process for the next 20 minutes until the broth is gone and the rice is done. If you run out of broth and the rice is still too hard, continue cooking, but ladle in hot water instead of broth.

   • As you cook the rice, it will begin to release it’s starches, which give risotto it’s signature creaminess.

   • Don’t over stir the risotto. People think that you have to stir risotto constantly, but if you over stir it, it will take the rice longer to cook and could break up the rice creating a gummy texture. Stir the rice frequently, but not constantly.

   • Make sure the liquid is almost completely absorbed before adding the next ladle of broth or water.

   • Taste the risotto towards the end of cooking. Add salt and pepper to taste, but go light on the salt as you can always add more later

5. Once the rice is done, turn the heat off and cover with lid.

6. Grill the shrimp and asparagus until just done, 2-4 minutes depending on size. Chop the asparagus by thirds

7. Uncover the rice and stir in the peas, mascarpone (or créme fraiche, if using), preserved lemons, and half the mint. Taste for seasoning and add salt to adjust.

8. Spoon out 4 servings of risotto into large shallow bowls or on dinner plates and top each with asparagus and 4 shrimp each. Sprinkle with remaining mint, torn fennel fronds and a nice bit of cracked black pepper.

FRESH Tomato Juice

We are in the middle of a serious tomato explosion at the farm right now. Every tomato that comes out of the hoop house looks like it has been super-sized; most are at least a pound and many are heavier than that. We have them with dinner every night, but when we're up to our eyeballs with this many tomatoes, we make juice. If you like V8 or the occasional Bloody Mary then I highly recommend you try making your own juice. **This is a very large recipe, so feel free to cut it in half or less depending on how many tomatoes you have**

If you don't own a juicer, you can easily make this juice in a blender working in batches and then pour it through a fine mesh strainer. You will likely yield more using a blender. Using the juicer method makes about 4 quarts.

Ingredients

• 16 pounds very ripe heirloom tomatoes
• 4.25 oz or 1 large stalk celery with leaves on
• 6 oz or about 4 medium-sized carrots
• 3.5 oz or one medium leek, washed well
• 2 oz or 1/3 of a large cucumber
• 3.5 oz or half a medium yellow onion
• 0.5 oz or 1/4 bunch of parsley, with stems
• 5 leaves of basil
• Salt & pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon citric acid or 1/4 cup lemon juice
• optional: Tabasco/hot sauce, cayenne powder to taste

Directions (using a juicer)

Cut up your tomatoes into pieces just small enough to fit down the juicer shoot. Juice all produce according to your juicer's instructions, emptying the carafe into a large stock pot as your juicer fills it up.

Heat over medium heat until boiling, then reduce to a low simmer. Simmer for at least one hour or until it reaches your desired consistency.

Add salt, pepper, and other spices to taste and add citric acid or lemon juice.

Directions (using a blender)

Set a mesh strainer over a large pot and set on the stove. Cut up your tomatoes and process all produce oh high speed in your blender. Pour the now pureed mixture into the strainer and gently stir and press the mixture against the sides of the strainer until you've pushed out most of the moisture. Repeat this process until you've strained the whole batch. Heat the mixture over medium heat until boiling, then reduce to a low simmer. Simmer for at least one hour or until it reaches your desired consistency.

Add salt, pepper, and other spices to taste and add citric acid or lemon juice.

Let cool to room temperature then place in the fridge. Will keep for up to one week in the fridge or 3 months in the freezer. 

Darina Allen's Elderflower Cordial

This cordial is very easy to make if you have fresh Elderflowers on hand. I found it in Darina Allen's book "Forgotten Skills of Cooking", which is an excellent book and you may be familiar with her Ballymaloe Cookery School in Cork.  

The cordial is delicious in prosecco or white wine, soaked into cake or used as a topping over ice cream. Our Elderflowers are just starting to bloom here on the farm. Yields 4.5 cups

Ingredients

10 Elderflower heads
2 1/2 cups water
4 cups sugar
1 3/4 ounces citric acid
1 lemon, sliced thick

Directions

You will need 10 Elderflower heads for this recipe. Once you have those pull the flowers off the heads, trying to avoid pulling too much of the stem with it, and place in a bowl. The leaves, stems and unripe berries of elderberry bushes contain toxins so that is why you remove all but the flowers, buds, and small stems.

In a saucepan that can comfortably hold 4.5 cups of fluid, mix water and sugar over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Remove the sugar + water mixture from heat and add the sliced lemons and elderflowers. Stir in the citric acid. Now we wait. Cover the pan and let sit at least 4 hours, but ideally overnight for more intense Elderflower flavor.

Strain the mixture through a fine mesh strainer and then bottle. Don't throw out the lemons! Instead, put them in a plastic bag and into the freezer. When you make a drink with your cordial, throw in a few of these beautiful slices of lemon to float on top.

You'll need to keep the cordial refrigerated. It's best fresh, but I've had mine for a year and it's still very good.

Summer Fruit Cobbler

My favorite cobbler is made with Italian prune plums that we grow on our farm. Summer is cobbler season and you can make a wonderful cobbler with plums, peaches, nectarines and berries, or a combination of them all. I add sugar to sweeten and cornstarch to thicken the fruit/berry juices.

Filling

• Sliced fruit (enough to fill your pan or dish)
• Cornstarch (two teaspoons per pound of fruit)
• Sugar to taste (varies depending on amount & type of fruit)

Cobbler Dough

• 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2/3 cup cream
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, chilled
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon + 2 tablespoons sugar (for topping)

Mix the cornstarch and sugar together in a small bowl. Start with less sugar than you think you will need, and increase as you tasted.Toss sliced fruit in sugar and cornstarch (amounts vary depending on how big you want your cobbler).

In a medium bowl mix flour, baking powder, 1 tablespoon sugar and salt. In a 1 cup measuring cup measure 2/3 cup heavy cream, crack in the egg, and mix with the vanilla. 

Cut up the chilled butter into 4 pieces and add it to the flour mixture, smearing between your thumb and pointer finger to make long strips of butter.  Keep smearing the flour and butter together until they come together like a rough meal.  Then pour in the heavy cream mixture and using a spoon or fork, toss the flour mixture together with the cream mixture. A rough dough will form; don't overwork it! 

Wet your hands with some water and take about a 1/2 cup of the dough in your hand. Pat the dough out to about a half inch thick and lay on top of fruit. Repeat, laying the patties of dough next to each other, touching, but leaving spaces between the rounded edges of the patties where the filling can be seen.  Continue until all the dough is gone. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 mins, or until the dough is deeply brown and the filling is bubbling vigorously.  

Let cool for at least two hours before serving.  Homemade vanilla or buttermilk ice cream is perfect with this.

Fresh Pear & Almond Cream Tart

We bought some beautiful organic pears the other day and I have been waiting for them to get to the perfect point of ripeness to make this tart.  This is a good example of a tart with a blind baked crust and a gently sweet, seasonal filling.  It is easy to make and luscious served all by itself, still warm from the oven or at room temperature.  Virtually any fruit can be substituted for the pear – cherries, peaches, plums, apples, nectarines are all good.  But pear is my favorite!

Start with an easy blind baked tart shell (see blog entry, “Baking Perfectly Blind”).  I used a 9” square tart tin this time, but you can use any shape you like.  The recipe for the tart dough given in “Baking Perfectly Blind” is enough for any tin 9” – 10”.

Here’s the filling recipe:

• 1 cup whole raw almonds
• ½ cup organic sugar
• ½ tsp. Kosher salt
• 1 whole egg
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp. almond extract

Make the filling:  Place almonds sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor.  Pulse the ingredients to a fine meal.  Add the cream, the egg, and the almond extract and process briefly to mix thoroughly. 

Next halve, core, peel, and slice the pears and place them artistically on your blind baked shell – spreading them a little - like a fan, if you want to.  Finally, pour the filling around the pears and smooth it into spaces and corners. 

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, turning front to back about half way through.  Remove from the oven when the tart is nicely browned and smells heavenly.  Cool on a rack.

Viola!

This was one of the most popular desserts at our restaurant.  We served it with warm caramel sauce, Chantilly cream and toasted, sliced almonds.  You can imagine.  But really, plain is so, so good.  Either way, eaters win!