It’s a wonderful problem. I have way too many figs this year. I eat two or three every morning while I pick about twenty or thirty more. Below is a picture of two days worth of picking, Time to dehydrate them.
My tree is about 60 feet tall and the wild parrots eat the figs on the top half. Sometimes the parrots are lower down where I can take a video …
Click image for my video of this wild parrot in my tree
I dehydrate the figs and then freeze them but there is very little room left in my freezer and I have not talked my husband into buying a separate one for the garage. So I posted on my neighborhood facebook page that I would trade for lemons (my tree is on hiatus til October) or cucumbers or squash.
A friend asked me for my recipe for drying them so here it is.
Wash the figs. Cut them in half and trim the stems off. Lay them skin side down in the dehydrator. Set it to 135° and let it run for 13-14 hours (depending how moist you like them). Take them out and freeze them in baggies until you are ready for them. They last up to 3 years in the freezer. Personally I have given up plastic as much as possible, so I use the biodegradable ones from Earth Hero; they also have reusable silicon baggies.
I would love some good recipes for using fresh figs in our chicken or vegetarian home cooked dinners. Leave me some suggestions in the comments. I found one that looks great and will try it soon:
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/tofu-with-fresh-figs-and-worcestershire-sauce-50121692
Kitty – We must be neighbors! I live in Orange County, CA where I see these beautiful parrots every day. Noisy little things, aren’t they? Such a treat to see so many of them fly over our house every morning and evening. I enjoy your informative blog and always learn something from it.
Wow this is such a coincidence! I had my first two figs today as my wife pick them up at a fresh food market for me and she did not know what they were either but I must say they were absolutely delicious I will definitely be eating them again, we do not get those goodies growing on trees in western New York….. ☺️
Nice article! I would love to know where you buy the biodegradable baggies.
I get the baggies from Earth Hero, if you click on that above it should take you there. Here is the URL again:
https://earthhero.com/products/travel/biobag-biobag-compostable-resealable-sandwich-bags-25pk/
I am in Ohio and I miss fresh figs. I wish I had a box of ’em. They sure look good.
Every summer my mother would gather together her four small kids and drive us to a nearby farm to collect figs. We, of course, mostly just picked the squishy ones up off the ground, but it kept us busy while she did the bulk of the picking. We would dump our little galvanized pails into a larger one, and when the distraction didn’t work anymore, off we would go, to home, to help Mom make this: https://www.thespruceeats.com/southern-fig-preserves-3056136
It promised a wonderful winter of home-made biscuits with fig preserves.
And delivered.
OMG….I’m so jealous! Our 2 fig trees had a very sparse production this year and I’m so bummed out! I wait for 4th of July every year to enjoy our figs….but not to be this year. The birds go the highest ones and the lower ones were few and far between, literally!
Fig pizza.
Or Figs wrapped in prosciutto, with crushed pistachios, drizzled with balsamic vinegar.
My mother picks some, paper bags some (on the tree – for later) and leaves some for the fig-pickers (New Holland Honeyeaters to be correct).
There are some great fig ice-cream recipes around too. But again, freezer room is needed. (Ancestor connection to ice / ice cream.)
You should be able to dry your figs further – maybe in the sun or the oven.
Dried figs keep OK in the Middle East without refrigeration. And they still go well in cakes, pastries, or in tagines with meat or vegetables.
Thanks Christopher, I realize that if I dried them further I would not have to refrigerate them but I love how moist and tasty my half dried figs are! My freezer holds enough to tide me over until next year …