There’s something about being immersed in nature that is so incredibly soothing and satisfying. The same can be said when you pick your own food, which we recently discovered with our freshly-picked figs. We recognize that we are extremely fortunate to have this property that has been in our family for several generations.

The enormity of that is not lost on us. It’s part of what makes us pause to appreciate everything around us – especially when we think of our ancestors, who planted these trees and who lived off this land for their lifetimes.

Learning to Appreciate the Little Things

In Portugal’s countryside, there is a lot of agriculture. Although we don’t have any animals on our property, we do have fruit trees, including a fig tree that sprawls horizontally. Even though someone cut it down without permission when we were away (we did exchange some words with the culprits), the branches regrew and there were beautiful, juicy figs for us this year. It’s these simple – joyous – moments, that we’re learning to appreciate.

Experimenting with Different Recipes

With all of those beautiful figs, we began to look into what recipes we could do in order to put these freshly-picked figs to good use.

We settled on the following two. Both were such hits (within our family but also with neighbours who we shared with) that we made them over and over again – until our tree stopped providing figs for this year.

Fig Cake

Using our freshly-picked figs, the first recipe we tried was this fig recipe. It was delicious.

Fig Bruschetta

The second recipe we tried was this fig bruschetta recipe. Admittedly, we tried it because it was the first recipe that popped up in our search, but it worked out perfectly.

At first, we weren’t sure if fig bruschetta would even be good, but it was surprisingly excellent. So much so that we kept tweaking the ingredients to match or compliment what we already had in the fridge.

Each time, there wasn’t a piece left over.

-Isabel & Marilyn

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