Thinking of You: Ashley

me (left) and my sister Ashley

My sister and I are like day and night. We lived in the same house together for 16 years and I'm pretty sure the only things we had in common were barbies when we were young and Johnny Depp movies when we grew up. She's adventurous, social, brainy, while I'm sort of a dreamy old fashioned homebody, I always wanted to be like her, but it never really worked out.

My sister and I live what seems like worlds apart these days and often times when I'm in the market, things that once made me cringe seem to make their way into my basket because the remind me of her.

She was a dancer and ate to fuel her body,  I loved to eat and I ate to feed my soul and so our favorite foods as you can imagine are vastly different. 

 

One of the things I remember most about her (in our teen years especially) is that she was always always drinking Arizona iced tea and eating dried apricots. Two things that (at the time) I could not stand. Tea with honey always icked me out (and even now I still prefer sugar) and dried apricots always seemed so weird to me, since they're fleshy enough to compare to the real deal but only half as sweet ( which is probably why she likes them).

This week when I came home from the market, I had in my bag a box of dried apricots and under the lid I found a recipe for Apricot Butter aka Ashley + Desiree.

 

Apricot Butter

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 tbsp honey

10 dried apricots

1/2 tsp lemon zest

look at my baby, she's brand new!

Dice apricots in a food processor; add butter, honey and lemon zest and process until well blended and fluffy

 

 Serve with toast or biscuits, a Johnny Depp movie, and a cup of iced tea (with or without honey).