A Compote of Turkish Dried Fruits and Nuts (p. 448)

I haven't done a dessert in a while, but we're having guests tonight for a Halloween cookout so I wanted to have something sweet to offer other than a ridiculous amount of candy.

I used dried figs and apricots to make this, but you could use any favored dried fruit if you make it. Just be sure to cover the dried fruits with boiling water to plump them up for about 15 minutes before moving onto the next step.

Meanwhile, toast the nuts -- I used a combination of walnuts and hazelnuts, both coarsely chopped. After about 15 minutes in the oven they were a nice golden brown. Process the nuts along with sugar in a food processor and then set them aside.

Arrange the now plump fruits prettily in a round oven dish.

I used a spring form pan, which was a total mistake -- use a regular oven dish. When I poured my simple syrup over the fruits a lot of it came out of the apparently not perfectly tight bottom of the spring form. I placed it on a baking dish before putting the whole thing in the oven, but it still made a total mess. I keep finding sticky spots on my floor from the syrup even though I've cleaned the area up about five times.

Anyway, after about 15 minutes in the oven pull the dish back out and scatter the nut mixture over the top. Return to the oven for another 15 minutes or so.

Because of my issue with the spring form, I needed to dump my compote into another dish -- so it definitely didn't hold its shape at all.

I served this warm with a little bit of sweetened greek yogurt on top. I loved the nut flavor, but wished that the dried fruits were in smaller pieces -- a little kind of goes a long way. Still, this is good, and I'll enjoy some semi-healthy desserts this week.

dried apricots -- $3.99

dried figs -- $3.99

walnuts -- $4.69 (for a giant bag, most of which is still left)

yogurt -- $1.00

Total Cost of A Compote of Turkish Dried Fruits and Nuts: $13.67