Another Peach Project

So many peaches.

What's a girl to do?

I gathered up our pinkish fruits for a quick batch of fallen fruit preserves. I combined the peeled chopped fruit with sugar and let the mixture sit in a bowl for a couple hours until a good quantity of juice came out. I strained the fruit and poured the sweetened juice into a pot, along with the juice of one lemon, and let it boil over high heat until reduced and the temperature reached 220º. I added the strained fruit into the pot and let the mixture cook until the fruit just was tender and barely caramelized on the edges. I ladled the cooked preserves into hot canning jars, sealed the tops and processed for 5 minutes in a hot water bath. Preserved summer, backyard fresh -- just waiting for a slice of homemade bread.

Peach Season

From flowers to fruit. Our backyard tree is finally covered with ripe, fragrant, soft peaches. I am so greedy with every one we manage to save from the marauding squirrels I even gathered up the bruised fruit from the ground for a fallen fruit cobbler.

The filling is just fresh blueberries (from the market -- our little young bushes don't produce even enough for tartlet just yet) and peeled chopped white peaches mixed with about 1 cup of brown sugar (I ran out of white) and almost 1/4 cup of flour. I covered the fruit with my go-to cobbler batter: 2 cups flour, 1 cup milk, 2 cup sugar, 1 TB Baking Powder, 1 tsp salt, 1 cup milk, 1 stick butter (melted) and a pinch of nutmeg -- mix wet into dry and stir until just combined. Spread the batter over the fruit making sure to cover completely and sprinkle the top with 1 TB sugar and another pinch of nutmeg.

After an hour at 350º we had a warm, comforting, nearly homegrown dessert.

Southern-Style Summer Sunday

Yesterday we got a new refrigerator -- a replacement for a faulty model we bought just two months ago, supplied by the manufacturer -- believe it or not.

As I was transferring food from freezer to freezer I came across a bag of head on shrimp I had nearly forgotten about and decided to whip them up for dinner tonight. Following a recipe by Bobby Flay of all people I tossed the shrimp in a spice mixture of pimentón dulce, chili powder, brown sugar, cumin, salt, pepper, and garlic. I sautéed them quickly in hot oil and coated the BBQ spiced shrimp with butter and scallions.

Since I was on a somewhat Southern bent I decided to add some hot skillet cornbread -- it was perfect for sopping up the sauce on the shrimp. And to finish? A cool summery peach tart.
Perfect for an end of summer Sunday.

After The Battle

Even though I can't declare battle squirrel 2010 an outright victory we had a large enough pile of small white peaches to share some with friends have a bowl in the fridge, and make a batch of this delicate white peach and lavender jam. I got the idea from Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard's Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving, a worthy kitchen companion. But, the ladies' recipe calls for pectin and I prefer a more cooked thick old-fashioned style jam. So I combined my usual recipe with some of Topp's and Howards' ideas and came up with this floral scented golden jam.

I pitted and coarsely chopped enough peaches to fill a 6 quart container and covered the fruit with 6 cups of sugar and let the fruit sit overnight in the refrigerator. The next day I covered 12 tablespoons of dried lavender flowers with about 1 1/2 cups boiling water and let sit for 20 minutes (the dogs got a quick walk while that was steeping). Into my largest pot went the fruit mixture, the lavender water (strained of the flowers), and 6 TBs of lemon juice. I brought the pot to a boil and let it simmer until the fruit was soft and a drop placed on a plate left in the freezer for 15 minutes firmed up to a consistency I liked for our latest batch of jam. I poured the mixture into sterilized jars and sealed as usual.

Preserving the taste of spring, one jar at a time.