4 easy recipes to make with fresh fruit

Maybe that mango tree in your backyard has gone bonkers and given you buckets of ripened fruit. Maybe it’s your neighbor’s orange tree that yielded quite the harvest and they came knocking and unloaded a whole basket of it on your hands. Maybe you got a little overexcited at the grocery store when you saw those beautiful peaches and added way too many to your cart or you, like me, have a passionfruit plant that’s been giving you nothing but yard work to do for the last three years and now all of a sudden you have three years’ worth of passionfruits.

So I’ve been getting creative and decided to share some of the things you can do with all those ripened fruits.

Making homemade jam is super easy and will get you a few more weeks to consume your fruit. Just cut it into small pieces, toss it in a pan with sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice and stir until you have a jam like consistency — about 5-10 minutes. The jam will get thicker as it cools so it’s ok if it’s a little runny when you take it off the heat.

There once was a time before I owned my own business when I used to make fresh orange juice every single morning! It’s a game changer if you can spare the 10 minutes, honestly. And when you’re working with super ripe fruit, you don’t need to add any sugar. My favorite combination is mango and orange juice. I just cut and peel a mango and throw it in a blender with store bought orange juice. Sooo good!

This is a tiny bit more involved but will only takes about 10-15 minutes to make.

Here's the recipe:

1 1/4 cup of raw cashews (soaked overnight or boiled for 10 minutes)

3 ripened fruits (peaches, mango, passionfruit — dealer's choice)

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

Toss it all in the blender* until it becomes smooth and homogenous. Transfer to individual ramekins or a large bowl and let it set in the fridge for 4-8 hours. Done!

*If you're working with passionfruit, first blend the fruit with water, then sieve it to get rid of the seeds and then blend the rest of the ingredients with the juice.

This might be the easiest cake you could ever make and it's a great mid-afternoon snack.

3 cups flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 cups of fresh fruit juice (again, dealer's choice of what kind)

1 tablespoon baking soda

1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil

In a bowl, mix flour and sugar.

In a blender, mix the juice and oil.

Pour the wet mixture over the dry and fold it together. Finally add the baking soda and gently stir it in.

Oil a bundt pan and pour the batter in.

Bake at 350 for approximately 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.