Perfectly Peaches!

On the way home from my book group weekend, we stopped at Bishop's Orchards in Guilford, Connecticut to buy some wonderful foodstuffs. They have great produce and tempting high end food items. Worth a visit if you are on the shoreline of Connecticut.

One of the items on my list was PEACHES. One of those baskets of utility peaches, so I could spend my day off making peachy things.

First thing - Summer Peach Cake. I have the Cooks Illustrated Cookbook and they have great recipes, all of which I want to try (all 890 pages...). The recipe can also be found on line here.  I love their little preambles....why this recipe works. This recipe has this introduction:

Why this recipe works:

To achieve the right texture for our Peach Cake, we sprinkled the peach slices with sugar and baked them in a very hot oven until they lost most of their moisture. Tossing the cooled peaches with crushed panko bread crumbs sopped up the gooey, viscous film that the peaches had acquired in the… read more

To achieve the right texture for our Peach Cake, we sprinkled the peach slices with sugar and baked them in a very hot oven until they lost most of their moisture. Tossing the cooled peaches with crushed panko bread crumbs sopped up the gooey, viscous film that the peaches had acquired in the oven. (The panko gets incorporated into the cake as the peach cake cooks.) Adding some peach schnapps to the batter boosted the peach flavor and gave us a peach cake recipe that could be made even with not-so-perfect peaches.

So the first thing I do when preparing a new recipe is read it over and do any prep first. Like preheating my oven, preparing my pans (9 inch spring-form & baking sheet), getting things to room temperature (eggs) and melting my butter (recipe says to melt & cool).

Now to tackle the peaches. The recipe calls for 2 1/2 pounds of peaches. Mine are large peaches. So what does 2 1/2 pounds translate to in "number of large peaches". I found this helpful fact

1 pound of fresh Peaches will equal: - 3 medium Peaches, or - 2 cups sliced Peaches. from Westview Orchards (came up first in my search, sounded authoritative). 

I translated that into 6 large peaches. I think. I just cut them up.

Thought I was keeping track but can't be sure. What I did do was to first slice 24 1/2 inch peach wedges as instructed by the recipe and gently tossed them with 2 tablespoons peach schnapps, 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice and 1 tablespoon granulated sugar. These are for arranging nicely on top. I put these aside. Then I needed peaches for the middle layer. So I sliced 4 more peaches and cut the wedges into 3-4 chunks each. These I tossed with 3 tablespoons schnapps, 2 teaspoons lemon juice and 2 tablespoons granulated sugar. I was preheating the oven to 425 degrees F and prepared a baking sheet by covering it with aluminum foil and sprayed with coconut oil spray. On this I spread the chunks of peaches with the juices into a single layer.

They baked until they were caramelizing and thickening at the edges of the pan, about 30 minutes. These came out of the oven and were set aside on a hot mat on my kitchen table to cool.


I reduced my oven to 350 degrees at this point.

Then it was time to prepare the batter.

I whisked the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl. Set that aside.

Then whisked 1/3 cup granulated sugar, brown sugar and eggs together in a bowl until it was thick and thoroughly combined. At this point, in went the butter I had melted earlier. I used the whisk and combined it well. Next went the sour cream and vanilla extract (didn't do the almond).

 Again whisking well until combined. Then the flour mixture and liquid mixture get whisked together until just combined (do not over mix). Set this aside.

Now we go back to those chunks of peaches that have been cooling. Sprinkly panko crumbs on top and gently mix together. The panko absorbs all the deliciousness of the caramelized liquid and is absorbed into the batter when cooking so no-one is the wiser.


Now we put this all together in the spring form pan. First I spread half the batter on the bottom. Then I gently spread the panko-ed peach chunks on top of that for my middle layer.

 I then spread the remaining batter on top. Then for our final pretty detail....I arranged my reserved peach wedges, slightly overlapping, in a ring around the outside of the top of the batter, Then arranged another ring in the inside. 24 wedges was the perfect amount. So professional looking!

Into the 350 degree oven this goes.

The recipe calls for 50 to 60 minutes until a toothpick inserted in center comes clean. I first set the oven for 50 minutes. Obviously not ready. Added 10 minutes. Still clearly not ready. Then kept adding 5 minutes or so to the timer and checking. Honestly it took about an hour and a half all together! And I think my oven usually runs hot. But it looks pretty and perfectly done. Hope it tastes good later!

Next - Peach jam....

There are a lot of recipes on line. But I don't like using pectin when I make jam. Or too much sugar. So I'm going with Martha Stewart's take, recipe here.  I'll process this jam so I can donate some to sell at our church fair and have some to give as gifts this Christmas. Martha has this to say about the recipe:

Preserve orchard-fresh flavor with nothing but sugar, lemon, and salt.

I really was making both these items at the same time. Once I got the cut up peaches in the oven for the recipe above I started to peel and cut up peaches for my jam.

I basically doubled Martha's recipe. So I prepared about 20 peaches. As I went along I pulsed them n my food processor and dumped them in my large pot.

 I peeled them directly into one of our large compost bins so that saved time for clean up. (yeah maybe it's gross displaying a picture of my compost bin...)

Then I mixed in roughly 2 1/2 cups of granulated sugar, a teaspoon of course salt and a "pour" of peach schnapps. (the schnapps was out from the previous recipe so I figured, "why not", It will intensify the peach flavor and the alcohol will burn off).

I put the big pot on medium on my stove top and let it slowly come to a boil.

 This took a long time. I stirred now & then. And then I just let it gently boil for a long time. Lots longer than the 12 minutes called for in the recipe. Maybe an hour. I let it boil down in size and become a bit thick. Really I stopped cooking it once I had finished everything else in the kitchen. I finished the cake (see above), washed all my dishes and prepared the canning jars and lids.

I wanted to finish up so I could eat lunch and finish my blog post. And then go correct a few papers. Then read my book.

Here are my jars of jam.

Here is my boiling bath.

And here are the completed jars. Yum.

NH Book Group Oct 2015 - June 2016

Another lovely start to our book reading year. We had our annual book group weekend at Ruth & Stearn's beautiful home in Rhode Island. And once again we had a terrific time with beach relaxation, food, drink, books & scrabble. I'm even inspired to go back to playing words with friends. Even though I lose.

Here is our traditional photo courtesy Chef & chief photographer David.

We had a relaxing Saturday afternoon at the beach.

Then it was back to the house for some happy hour and a little beverage tasting. All were enjoyable with everyone having their favorites.

Of course this was all with a beautiful view to entertain us (as well a much conversation).

We got down to a little business during this time. We all had book choices and did a nice job of lining up our year.

October (meeting 10/26 at Pat's house)

November (meeting 11/23 At LuAnn's house)

December  (tentatively 12/14 at Susan's)- our annual Christmas party with a Yankee gift swap. No book chosen but open to something light if anyone has suggestions (we don't usually do a structured conversation at our holiday party).

January (meeting 1/11 at Mary Anne's house).

February (meeting 2/29 location pending)

March (meeting 3/21 location pending)

April (meeting 4/25 Cindy's house)

May (meeting 5/23 JinYoung's house)

June - tentatively June 20? TBA...this is our potluck end of year meeting. We don't typically have a book unless it is something fun, summer light. And at this meeting we share summer reading ideas. And have lots of good food and fun.

Finally we rounded out our Saturday with a lovely dinner. Chef Dave grilled some salmon for us on a cedar plank, exquisite!

Many of us are inspired to try the recipe and technique. Recipe HERE.

And we finished dinner with some delicious dessert!

So that's our upcoming year of reading. This has been updated with our April book choice. Which sounds really great. And if anyone has suggestions for December and June - we're open to reading something those months even though those are our "party" meetings.

And finally a "shout out" to our members who couldn't come to the weekend retreat - Marjorie, LuAnn, Janet, Carol, Susan - you were all missed and we hope to see you all over the coming months!

My "Bouquets of the Day"

I love all the beautiful flowers of spring, summer & autumn. I have multiple gardens in my yard. I mostly focus on summer flowers since I am so busy in the spring and fall with school and teaching.

I also enjoy the Facebook page "Bouquet of the Day" based in San Francisco, CA. They feature a new bouquet each week day (Friday's bouquet is for Friday-Sunday) from flowers grown in their own yard.

If you enjoy flowers, you should follow them. Then every day there will be a bouquet in your home feed.

I've been feeling very inspired by their bouquets and started to but more flowers to arrange in my home this summer. And take pictures of my arrangements. And post them on Facebook. Like these:

I also noticed that occasionally on Bouquet of the Day they had a guest arrangement. So I decided to message them and see if they accepted photographs. They responded with a "yes, but we are picky". Fair enough, their bouquets are gorgeous. So I decided that sometime this summer I would send them a picture.

Last week I was out in the yard collecting some bee balm for a bouquet. Then I saw that my honeysuckle vine was flowering again. Hmmm dark pink & orange? It needed some white to pull it together. A little flowering oregano, Queen Ann's lace and feverfew to balance things out. A little riotious. But I sent it in to the good folks at Bouquet of the Day. And guess what? They liked it. So it was the guest bouquet of the day for July 20, 2015. Thank you thank you!  You made my summer! <3

The best book I've read so far this year (2015)

Maybe it's a little early to choose my most favorite book of 2015. But this book was amazing! Beautifully written, powerful story, a twist on the usual WW2 novel. If you haven't read it, go out and get a copy. Now. Read it. 

Strawberry Banana Bread

A belated Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there. We had a lovely day yesterday. We went on a hike on the new Tidal Marsh Trail in North Haven (a little difficult to find, but a beautiful 2 mile walk, with nice cooling breezes) and then our younger daughter Julia dragged us to the middle school and we ran on the track (1 mile, huffpuff) while we tracked our progress on our new RunKeeper app. Okay I only ran three laps (0.84 miles) so I'm working up to it. I'm really a walker but want to improve my lung capacity so hope to be able to do some running but not so much that I wreck my knees or further aggravate my plantar fasciitis. But how does this all lead to Strawberry Banana bread?

Well after a lovely dinner of grilled london broil & lamp chops and assorted veggies - we had homemade strawberry shortcake for dessert!  With super sweet and yummy strawberries from our local Pell Farms.  And I got carried away and prepared 3 quarts of strawberries for our strawberry shortcake. There are only three of us at home now. So we had way too many. And I was browsing through pinterest recipes to help my older daughter find a recipe for a sweet bread for her faculty breakfast this week and suggested she look for strawberry bread. Long story short - I found this recipe and thought this is perfect for ME!  We have an over-abundance of strawberries, some over-ripe bananas and I have some homemade yogurt. Of course I tweaked things a bit - so here is my version:

Strawberry Banana Yogurt Bread

Ingredients

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

½ organic cane sugar (or brown sugar)

2 large ripe bananas

2 eggs

6 ounces plain yogurt (or use vanilla or strawberry-banana - mine was plain, homemade)

2 cups diced strawberries

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, grease a loaf pan (mine is a pampered chef stone one).

Combine flour, baking powder & salt in a small bowl.

In a separate bowl, mash bananas thoroughly. Add eggs & sugar to the bananas and mix thoroughly. Then add the greek yogurt and strawberries. Mix very well so there are no lumps.

Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Mix until just combined.

Pour your batter into your prepared loaf pan. If you have extra strawberries, scatter some on top of your loaf.

Bake in your oven about an hour until the top is golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool at least 10 minutes before slicing.