Figs
 

A friend gave me a few fresh figs. Any suggestions for what to do with them? Besides just eat them out of hand.

Make Chicken with Figs, Fennel and Bacon! Yum! One of my favorite recipes. If you don't like fennel, you can sub celery.

I love figs! One of my favorite ways to eat them is to make fig and yogurt parfaits. I sweeten some plain, nonfat Greek yogurt, top it with some diced figs, and dust it with cinnamon.

Or take a 4 to 6 oz chicken breast and cut a slit in it (to make sort of a pocket). Mix 1/2 to 1 oz of goat cheese (or cream cheese, if you aren't a fan of goat cheese) with Dijon mustard, salt, and pepper and stuff that into the slit you cut in the chicken. Add a diced fig to the chicken. You could also add some bottled roasted red pepper. The broil the chicken until it is cooked through, flipping once during the cooking process.

I also love figs in salads. Here is one of my fav salads:

Goat Cheese, Fig, and Chicken Salad
2 oz spinach
a few cloves of roasted garlic, sliced
2 oz fennel roasted
1 oz red onion roasted
3 oz red pepper, roasted
1 oz goat cheese
4 oz chicken, cooked and shredded
2 oz figs

For dressing, I mix 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar with 1 tsp mushrooms. I also add sea salt and pepper to taste to the salad.

Lol, when I saw the thread title "figs" I immediately thought of the conversation Barbara & I had a few weeks ago where she mentioned the Chicken and fig recipe. I never got around to making it (though it sounds delicious!). A lot of people in my area grow figs, and they're in season right now. Someone who knows I like to can and preserve gave me a whole bunch. I made some fig jam using 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1 1/2 cups splenda for the whole batch and it turned out really well. I figured out about 25 cals/tbsp. It tastes similar to strawberry jam. I also wish I had more b/c I wanted to dry some and use them in homemade protein/fiber bars, but haven't been gifted any more.

Eat them!!! God I love figs.

I use the strawberry fig preserves recipe from the same site Megan used. I used the No sugar added sure jell and splenda, because I try to eat lower carb. It turned out great! I love figs by themselves, but they have an extremely limited shelf life. I was gifted with two gallons earlier this summer, and had to do something with them quickly and didn't get very creative. :)

Wow, what great recipes. I don't have enough to make jam, but I think I will try one of the chicken dishes. I just made an apricot/almond/goat cheese stuffed chicken breast that was really good. I love TJ's lite goat cheese!!! Eating Well had an interesting recipe for pork medalions, fig/port wine sauce, but I did't want to buy a whole bottle of port for it.

I just cut into one of the figs. It is so pretty inside and very tasty. I think maybe the only fig experience I have had is with fig newtons.

This morning I inspected the little volunteer fig tree we have in our garden. It is loaded with little fruits. I think maybe one of them is about ready to pick. These are green figs, as are the ones my friend gave me.

Unfortunately, they've discontinued that product. My TJ's hasn't had it for several months. I emailed their corporate office and they said they discontinued it due to slow sales. You could try the light feta instead, or use regular goat cheese (if you were using 1/2 to 1 oz, that would only add about 20-40 calories).

Well, that stinks. It seemed to me that the light goat cheese was really a wonderful product. I guess I didn't buy enough.

It was a fabulous product! I loved it and am so sorry it is no longer available. :mad: I used it in almost every recipe I had that called for cheese, even things like tamale pie and tacos. If they didn't sell enough, it wasn't through lack of effort on my part--I bought a ton of it. ;) I think if they had just featured it in the TJ flyer and in a couple of their tasting stations, they could have really increased sales. Oh well...