One can only hope that as we get older we learn and grow progressively.  I discovered my love of cooking as soon as I was able to read.  At five years old I received my first cookbook, I was instantly hooked.  I read that book over and over again.  Then moved on to the Joy of Cooking, which I destroyed reading so much.

Present day my cookbook collection has tremendously grown in size, now including Juila Child, Bobby Flay and Jamie Oliver. In each of these cookbooks there are recipes that intimidate the crap out of me.  So naturally I see these scary recipes as a challenge.

I made a goal for myself this year to do things that truly challenge me.  Make and develop recipes that I have never done before, while keeping them healthy.  I’ve been sticking to the things that I am comfortable with for too long.  It’s time to break out of my culinary comfort land and add new skills to my growing repertoire.

Melissa’s Produce recently sent myself and three other talented Inland Empire Food Bloggers (IEFB) a mystery box of their seasons best.   We challenged ourselves as a group to make recipes using the ingredients that came, whatever they were.

The day it came I was like a little kid on Christmas.  I had been having a crudtastic day and this box of goodness brightened my day like only a great box of produce can.

This simple, but heavy brown box was filled with four types of grapes, three types of figs, a young coconut and two dragon fruit.  Christmas was the wrong holiday to use to describe this box.  It felt much more like crisp, comfortable fall meets a tropical vacation.  Sounds like my kind of trip.

The grapes were a huge hit in our house.  All four varieties had my boys coming back to the kitchen for more.  They hated waiting for the green light to devour them after I finished with what I needed.  Among the quad of grape flavors were black muscato, red muscato, champagne, and cotton candy.  I loved them all, but the red muscato were my favorite.

Grapes have a whole host of benefits including:

• supports muscle recovery
• fights diabetes
• fights fat
• improve brain power
• fat cell storage reduction
• protects heart
• fights inflammation

The trio of figs made me anxious.  The last time I had a fig I was seven.  If you follow me you know that there is only one food that is on my do not eat list, beets.  It’s not that I don’t like figs.  Actually the extreme opposite. I ate so many figs straight from my grandfather’s friend’s tree when I was seven that I made myself extremely sick.  Why no one stopped me before I devoured 20 raw figs I can’t say.  All I know is that I never wanted to touch one after that.

So as you can imagine I was concerned when I opened the box.  I cautiously tasted each of the figs; Mission, Brown Turkey, and Tiger.  I was brought back to why I devoured so many in one sitting.  Figs are sweet, fiber and calcium filled treats.  The 5.5g of fiber per fig explains my stomach issues after eating too many.  I am happy to say that eating an appropriate amount I was perfectly fine.

I can’t wait to tell you about the dragon fruit and young coconut, so stay tuned for another post where I gush about them in detail!

Being that both grapes and figs have a high sugar content I wanted to make a savory dish.  It also needed an acid component to cut through the sugar.  Wine immediately came to mind.  after searching through recipes I finally decided this was a time to challenge myself.  Not only have I never made a compote, I have never actually had one either.  Not knowing what to expect in the end was going to make this even more challenging.  Challenge accepted.

The final product made my taste buds sing.  I have learned that a compote is a reduced, yet chunky sauce.  The fruit doesn’t break down completely, but the sugars release and create a syrup like base for the fruit.  The gentle spice of the garlic and ginger in the pork make this a perfect pairing to the light sweetness of the compote.

It may sound like a complicated dish, but it couldn’t be easier.  The pork can be marinated and frozen up to three months (thaw in the fridge overnight).  The compote can be made up to 3 days in advance or frozen up to 3 months, defrosted in a pan over low heat till heated through.

The bright raspberry color of the compote and yellow dots of mustard seed make this vibrant dish a dinner party must.  Impress your friends with this stunning dish.  You can even pretend it took all day.  I won’t tell, I promise!

For step by step directions, scroll down to the recipe below.

Want to see what my fellow bloggers did with their mystery box from Melissa’s?

My rockin’ fellow blogger Natalie from The Devil Wears Parsley made an out of this world Fig & Grape Pork Loin Roulade Sandwiches w/ Coconut Gravy & Dragon Fruit Greens.

The extremely talented Sara from My Imperfect Kitchen made a mouth watering Fig Grape and Walnut Spread.

Sue, the vivacious writer of It’s Ok to Eat the Cupcake came up with a dazzling recipe for Quinoa with Roasted Grapes and Grilled Chicken.

To find a store where these succulent fruits are sold please click here.

*Disclaimer* Thank you to Melissa’s Produce for sponsoring this post through supplying the figs, grapes, coconut and dragon fruit.  I was not compensated for this post.  All opinions are my own.