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When it comes to entertaining, it’s handy to have a trick or two up your sleeve. Our Beetroot Carpaccio with Fried Bacon Prunes is more of an assembly job than a recipe – but it couldn’t look prettier and more impressive on the plate! Make sure you slice the beetroot finely and cook the bacon till it has a bit of crunch. The contrasting textures will combine to create a super-tasty starter.

Ingredients

125 g kitchen-ready small-leaved lamb’s lettuce
500 g precooked skinned beetroot
Freshly ground black pepper
150 g Feta
7-8 slices of bacon (125 g) (alternative: Pancetta)
100 g Sunsweet prunes
50-60 ml lemon juice

Instructions

1. Wash lamb’s lettuce, thoroughly drip dry. Cut beetroot into wafer-thin slices, place on 4 large plates and sprinkle with a little pepper. Put lamb’s lettuce around the edges of beetroot. Crumble Feta over this.
2. Cut bacon into 2 cm wide pieces. Halve prunes. Fry bacon in a coated pan at medium heat without adding any fat until light brown and slightly crunchy. Remove pan from stove. Add prunes, briefly stir fry and heat. Immediately spread everything with the exuded fat and arrange widely on the beetroot and lamb’s lettuce. Sprinkle with lemon juice and immediately serve.

Tip: Ciabatta or wheat bread goes well with this.

Refining: additionally sprinkle salad with Crema di Balsamico balsamic vinegar, if necessary also instead of lemon juice.

Our Flavourful Quinoa Prune Tabbouleh may have the humble spud running scared! Beautiful to look at. Extremely versatile. And full of flavour as its name suggests. It’s a super tasty light lunch or a side dish to liven up the very dullest of suppers; a wonderful recipe to have in your repertoire. What's not to love?!

Ingredients

300 g quinoa
2 red onions 
250 g cherry tomatoes 
1 cucumber 
100 g California prunes 
1 avocado
2 bunches of flat-leaf parsley 
1 bunch of mint 
10 tbsp. olive oil 
8 tbsp. lemon juice 
1 tsp. cumin 
Salt & pepper 

Instructions

1. Wash quinoa thoroughly under running water for 2 minutes and then drain. Place in a saucepan with 600 ml of water, add salt and bring to the boil. Simmer over low heat for approximately 15 minutes until quinoa grains break open and swell. Quinoa is al dente even when cooked. Fluff the quinoa gently with a fork, then serve.
2. Peel onions and cut into strips, dice tomatoes and halve cucumber, remove seeds and slice. Dice prunes and avocado. Wash and chop parsley and mint. Stir olive oil together with lemon juice, cumin, salt and pepper until smooth. Add quinoa and other ingredients. Let rest for about 20 minutes and serve.

Combining avocado, apple and spinach leaves and flavoured with honey, lemon, ginger and super-sweet prune juice this is a smoothie that packs a powerfully nutritious punch. And it’s an easy way to get lots of healthy fruit and veg into the family’s fussiest eaters!

Ingredients

½ an avocado
A small apple, peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
A handful of spinach leaves, washed
A tablespoon of honey
The juice of ½ a lemon
A knob of ginger, about 2cm long – peeled
300 ml Prune juice

Instructions

1. Place all of the ingredients except for the ginger and the Prune juice, into the blender.
2. I like to grate my ginger with a fine grater, so if you have one I recommend you do the same; if you don’t have one then simply chop the ginger as finely as you can and add it.
3. Pour in enough prune juice to barely cover the ingredients, then simply blend everything well.

Our Prune Biscotti with White Chocolate are sure to be appreciated by foodie friends. However they take their coffee, these Biscotti will be the perfect accompaniment and – drizzled attractively with white chocolate - they make a really pretty gift! Best eaten within 4 weeks, they can be stored in a sealed container for up to 8 weeks. But we’re pretty sure they won’t last that long!

Ingredients

280 g flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 pinch salt
160 g sugar
90 g butter (molten)
2 eggs
1½ tsp. bourbon vanilla sugar
100 g Sunsweet prunes, finely chopped
60 g almonds, ground
1 egg white (large)
80 g white chocolate
80 g mixed nuts, coarsely chopped

Instructions

1. Sieve flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and mix well. Combine sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla sugar and chopped prunes in another large bowl and mix. Add flour mix and stir well with a wooden spoon. Add almonds.
2. Divide dough into halves. Flour hands and shape 2 logs, each approx. 10 cm long. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place logs on it. Space logs well apart.
3. Beat egg white in a cup until frothy. Paint the logs with the egg white.
4. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 170 °C (not suitable for convection ovens) for 35 minutes on the centre rack. Remove baking sheet from the oven and let logs cool completely. Melt chocolate. Coarsely chop nuts.
5. Remove logs from baking sheet and cut diagonally into slices using a serrated knife. Place slices on the baking sheet (with parchment paper) and bake for another 12 minutes. Turn slices and bake for 8 more minutes. Remove to a rack and cool. Decorate with melted chocolate and sprinkle with chopped nuts. Wait until chocolate has solidified and wrap as a gift.

There are few aromas more festive than that of mulled wine. But what about a glass of Christmas cheer without the alcohol? Our alcohol-free Spicy Hot Apple Cider with Prune Juice is a lovely alternative that the whole family will love. It makes a nice change from hot chocolate, too!

Ingredients

2 cups (480ml) Sunsweet® Prune Juice
2 cups (480ml) apple juice
2 cinnamon sticks
12 whole cloves

Instructions

1. In a medium saucepan, combine prune juice, apple juice, cinnamon sticks and cloves; bring to the boil.
2. Reduce heat; simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Remove and discard cinnamon and cloves.

Our warm poached prunes with yogurt make a wonderfully comforting and satisfying morning dish – just perfect as part of a relaxed, weekend brunch. The whole family will love this sweet and creamy dish. And it makes a lovely sweet-treat to complete a mid-week dinner, too – delicious!

Ingredients

8 ready-to-eat Prunes
100ml Prune juice
1 cup of strong tea (I love Redbush tea)
Zest of an orange
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
200g natural yoghurt

Instructions

1. Place all of the ingredients, except for the yoghurt, in a heavy-based pan, place over a high heat, and bring to the boil.
2. Reduce the heat, cover, and leave to simmer for 10 minutes, then turn off the heat and leave to cool.
3. Divide the yoghurt between two bowls. Scoop out the prunes with a slotted spoon and place half on top of each helping of yoghurt.
4. Drizzle with a tablespoon or two of the fragrant liquid, and eat immediately.

Sweet and scrumptious with delicious accents of warming ginger and zingy lime, the whole family are sure to love our Pumpkin Soup with Prunes. Rustle up a pot before heading out for an afternoon stroll. You'll return to a home filled with the comforting aroma of Autumn. Hearty, tasty and full of healthy vegetables and fruit, serve this soup with our gluten free focaccia. It's what Autumn is all about. This soup keeps well, too, so make plenty!

Ingredients

300 g pumpkin 
200 g carrots
1 walnut-sized piece of ginger
1 onion
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
800 ml vegetable stock 
Salt and pepper
Cayenne pepper
1 organic lime
120 g Sunsweet prunes
100 ml whipping cream
4 small stems of celery with green leaves

Instructions

1. Rinse and dice pumpkin. Peel, clean and rinse the carrots cut them into small pieces. Peel and dice the ginger. Peel and dice the onion.
2. Heat the vegetable oil in a large pan. Briefly braise the onion, pumpkin, carrots and ginger in the hot oil. Pour in the vegetable stock and boil the vegetables with the lid on the pan for approx. 25-30 minutes until they are soft. Puree everything in a food processor. Season with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper.
3. Rinse the lime and strip its peel off with a zester. Squeeze out the lime juice. Add the lime juice, lime peel and prunes (halved if you want) to the soup and briefly heat it again. Whisk the cream until it is semi thick. 
4. Serve the soup in cups or glasses with a celery stem and a spot of cream.

The very best soups fill the house with tempting aromas as they cook: our Spicy Squash Soup with Chorizo is no exception! Ginger, rosemary and smoked paprika combine to tempt the taste-buds. With squash, chorizo and scrummy Sunsweet prunes, this is a hearty and flavourful recipe just perfect for still-chilly February.

Ingredients

600 g butternut squash
30 g ginger root 2 onions
3 tbsp. oil
2 tbsp. smoked paprika powder
300 ml white wine
400 ml chicken stock  
4 chorizo sausages (Spanish paprika sausage)
200 g Sunsweet prunes
30 g pumpkin seeds
2 sprigs of rosemary
3 tbsp. sour cream
Salt, pepper

Instructions

1. Peel squash and ginger and dice finely. Dice the onions into large pieces. Heat oil in a pot, add squash, onions, paprika powder and ginger and sauté for 5 minutes. Deglaze with white wine and stock and boil at a medium heat for 15 minutes. Cut chorizo sausage into slices. Cut prunes into large pieces. Toast pumpkin seeds in a dry pan.
2. Grind squash in a blender. Season with salt and pepper to taste, add prunes and keep hot. Fry chorizo slices in a dry pan for 5 minutes on each side at a medium heat. Chop rosemary and sprinkle onto the sausage.
3. Pour soup into a bowl. Serve with sausage, sour cream and pumpkin seeds.

Tip: Optionally sprinkle some of the chorizo oil from the pan onto the soup.

Quick to make, super-yummy and with no added sugar. What's not to love about these 4 Ingredient Prune Cookies? But would it surprise you to discover that these delicious cookies are bone friendly too? Research suggests that - because of the nutrients that they provide - the fruits may well have bone health boosting benefits. So tuck in!

View our collection of delicious Bone Friendly Recipes

Ingredients

16 SUNSWEET prunes
2 tablespoons hot water
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. In a food processor, pulse SUNSWEET prunes and hot water until smooth. Pulse in oats and walnuts until a sticky dough forms.
3. Roll dough into 12 balls and place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
4. Bake for 15 minutes. Immediately after removing from the oven, tap each of them down with a glass to form a cookie shape and let cool.

You can never have too many soup recipes in your repertoire. And our Exotic Lentil Soup with Prunes is a wonderful addition, just perfect for the autumn. Colourful to look at and warming to sip – it’s a hug in a bowl! With crusty bread, it makes a satisfying supper. And, popped into a flask, it makes a healthy, on-the-go meal.

Ingredients

3 carrots
200 g celeriac 
2 red onions 
1 leek 
1 sweet potato (approx. 350 g) 
1 bunch flat parsley 
2 tbsp. oil
300 ml chicken stock (or vegetable stock)
300 g pre-soaked and cooked lentils 
300 g Sunsweet prunes
4 tbsp. apple vinegar 
Salt, pepper  

Instructions

1. Peel carrots and slice. Dice celeriac, peel onions and cut into strips. Clean leek, cut into slices and wash. Peel potato and cut into pieces. Pull parsley leaves from the stems and chop coarsely.
2. Heat oil in a pot. Add potato, onions, carrots and celeriac and steam for 5 minutes at medium heat. Add leek and steam for 2 more minutes. Deglaze with stock. Add lentils and simmer for 20 minutes at a medium heat. Add prunes and parsley.
3. Season to taste with apple vinegar, salt and pepper.

Tip: Roast some almond slivers and add as topping to the soup. Serve with toasted rye bread.