Santa Rosa Plum Crumble

Over the next couple of weeks, I hope to feature each of the common stone fruits - peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums - at least once! It's the season for them, so they should be in overabundance on the shelves of your grocery store or farmer's market right now.

Tonight the star of the show is the plum. I could not find actual Santa Rosa plums for this recipe - a California variety which was not on the shelves here in New York - but any variety of plum will do - I chose black, because I've always found them a bit sweeter than the red variety.

Whichever variety you choose, cut 7 plums into 6 wedges each. Plums are easy to cut in half, by making a circle with a knife around the hard pit in the center; the two halves will then gently twist apart. The pit can then be easily removed with your hand or a spoon.

Place the plum wedges in a bowl with 2 tablespoons raw sugar and 1 and 1/2 tablespoons organic dry red wine of your choice. Cut a 2-inch vanilla bean in half lengthwise, and scrape the seeds into the bowl; toss gently to combine. Spoon the mixture into a 9-inch square baking dish coated with cooking spray and set aside.

Note: after scraping out the seeds, you can simply discard the vanilla bean. You could also, however, place it in a container of vegan sugar for vanilla-infused sugar in the future - yum! It will keep for up to 6 months

In a separate bowl, combine 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour with 1/2 cup regular oats, 3 tablespoons organic brown sugar, 3/4 tsp. grated orange rind, 1/8 tsp. salt and just a pinch of nutmeg.

Cut 2 and 1/2 tablespoons of chilled vegan butter (such as Earth Balance) into small pieces, and cut the pieces into the flour mixture using a pastry blender, 2 knives, or the back of a fork, until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.

Sprinkle the flour mixture over the plum mixture. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

Because this dessert is equally delicious warm or at room temperature, it's a great candidate for a night when you want to make dessert ahead of time! When you're ready to serve, spoon about 1 cup onto each of 4 dessert plates. Each serving is 290 calories.

This recipe also doubles easily if you have a summer weekend crowd!

Cost:
plums $3.09
dry red wine $12.99
orange $1.07