Fruit Soup

Like I said before, when I was dating Monte and he told me about fruit soup, I thought it sounded awful. But now it's my favorite Christmas food and I make a big pot so we have leftovers and plenty for serving at all sorts of get-togethers during the holidays. Here is my fruit soup recipe:

12 oz bag of pitted dried prunes, cut them up
1 1/2 c raisins
1 c cut up dried apricots
(about 2/3 cups each cut up dried apples and pears)
(I usually add cranberries too)
(Now I add dried bing cherries instead of adding 2 cans of sour cherries)
10 cups water
2 cinnamon sticks
6 whole cloves (put in a little mesh basket or cheesecloth)
slices of lemon

Bring this to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add 6-7 Tbs tapioca to grape juice to soak a bit before adding to the soup. I eventually pour in a whole jug (32 oz) of unsweetened grape juice. This needs to simmer a bit more for the tapioca to cook and thicken.

It's good both warm and cold. I like it room temp. Monte loves to eat it with cream. It's great with ice cream. It's good with aebleskivers and pancakes and rice pudding ...