Peaches: Fresh, Tart, and Jam

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Biting into a fresh ripe peach is one of the most exquisite food experiences. The smooth juicy texture of the fruit is both lusciously soft and satisfyingly toothsome; a balance that seems contradictory but is somehow captured inside this beautiful delicate package.

A fresh ripe peach offers just enough toothy resistance to make each bite noticeable. As though it’s a signal to pay attention to the moment, to this perfectly ripe sweet juicy fruit that is here now and will soon be gone again for 11 months.

It’s not elegant, but my favorite way to eat a fresh peach is peeled, halved, and out of hand while standing at the kitchen sink letting the juice run down my arm. It’s a full-concentration kind of food. Let me be while I eat my peach.

I love eating fresh ripe peaches so much that I find it hard to cook with them. I like peach dishes, I just don’t ever want to give up my stash of fresh peaches to make a recipe. I did pony up three peaches for this week’s Tuesday’s with Dorie recipe to make the Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart. I’ll admit to it being a good use of peaches.

The fresh peaches are simply sliced and fanned out over a pre-baked shell that is then flooded with custard and topped with a crumb topping. I was skeptical of the crumb topping, fearful it would ruin a good thing, but it truly enhanced the tart. What made the topping successful is that it was sparse so it didn’t create a solid crust of sugar, and it had almonds in it. They added the perfect crunch and flavor to complement the peaches.

This tart is wonderful. The soft peaches and custard filling are sweet and creamy which is especially good when matched with a crisp shortbread-like crust. Though I am stingy with fresh peaches, I would actually consider doubling them in this tart. They were so good I wanted more of them in each bite. Rachel of Sweet Tarte gets full credit for motivating me to cook with my prized fresh peaches.

I have recently discovered using lavender leaves rather than just lavender flowers in dishes and decided to add some to the crust. Tasting the leaves and flowers side by side, the leaves have a nice lavender flavor, but don’t have the bitter finish that the flowers do. I added a tablespoon of chopped leaves to the dry ingredients. Once the crust was cooked, the flavor was very subtle, almost too subtle. I think the flowers have a little more punch and I will try using a mix of both next time. The combination of peaches and lavender is lovely and subtle is always the better way to go with a lavender experiment because it’s all too easy to end up with something that tastes like potpourri or bath soap.

Rachel got me on a bit of a roll and I decided to make a small batch of jam as well. Sticking with the peach lavender theme I used the lavender leaves again. They give the jam a nice herby note but in such a subtle way it’s difficult to pinpoint that it’s lavender.

This recipe only makes about 1 ½ cups so I just put it in the refrigerator to enjoy right away rather than bothering to can it for future consumption. There is something to be said for making a quick and simple spur-of-the-moment batch of jam. Don’t think I don’t enjoy canning. I have a pantry shelf loaded with jam I’ve made this summer. As a result, all my canning jars have been filled and I didn’t have a single spare to use for this jam, so it became a make-and-eat batch.

Peach Lavender Jam

1 pound of fresh peaches, peeled, pitted, and sliced
¼ ounce fresh lavender stems with leaves, tied into a bundle
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice
7 ounces (1 cup) granulated sugar

Place a small plate in the refrigerator to have chilled for testing the set of the jam.

Place the peaches, lavender, lemon zest and juice in a 3 qt. heavy-bottom sauce pan. Over medium-low heat, let the peaches cook for about 15 minutes to become very soft and release their juice. Stir frequently to prevent burning and lower the heat if necessary. As the peaches soften, mash them with the back of a spoon. Muddle the lavender bundle with the spoon as well to release the flavor of the herb.

Once the peaches have broken down and cooked for 15 minutes, reduce the heat and stir in the sugar. After the sugar is completely dissolved, increase the heat to medium-high and bring the jam to a boil for 5 minutes.

Place a small dollop of jam on the chilled plate and put it in the refrigerator for a minute or two. To check for setting, push one edge of the jam toward the center of the dollop, if the surface wrinkles, the jam is set and can be removed from the heat, if not, continue to cook and re-test every few minutes. Transfer jam to a clean jar and store in the refrigerator. Enjoy within 1 – 2 weeks.

Recipe link

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. 140 recipes completed 81 to go!

All photos by David Peterman unless otherwise noted

Kale Chips & Curried Garbanzo Nuts – Baked Not Fried

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Have you crunched into a crispy kale chip? So light and crispy they shatter and crumble in your mouth and have a salty earthy flavor that is a completely satisfying snack sensation.

It’s rather astonishing how easy it would be to eat an entire bundle of kale once it’s baked into crispy chips and sprinkled with salt and maybe a touch of spice. I can’t fathom eating that much fresh kale, yet I must ration my kale chips to keep from devouring them in a single sitting.

They are simple to make; a little rub of oil, dusting of salt, spread on a sheet pan and bake for 15 minutes. How can you not give this a try? In addition to the hightly desirable snack qualities of crispy and salty, baked kale has a sweet earthy flavor reminiscent of seaweed, but unlike seaweed it doesn’t get soggy and chewy when eaten. Nutmeg is a great spice with greens, so I added a touch after the chips came out of the oven. Good, but I really liked the batch I made with garam masala; the complexity of a blend of spices is more interesting. The sweet warm flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and cardamom typically found in garam masalas are prefect with kale.

For a great snack duo, bake up some garbanzo beans while you’re at it. Right from a can these little nuggets are as easy to toast up as the kale, though it takes about 60-70 minutes to get them baked to a completely crispy state. Well worth the wait. Sprinkled with a bit of kosher salt and curry powder they too become an addictive little snack, and can pack a punch depending on how spicey your curry powder is. Sort of like corn nuts, only good for you. I have Jaden over at Steamy Kitchen to thank for putting this treat on my radar. I read about them on her blog and got up from my computer and headed right for the can of garbanzos stashed in the pantry. For some really creative flavor treatments check out the list of roasted garbanzo bean recipes the folks over at The Kitchn wrangled from across the web, or just turn to your own spice collection for inspiration.

Both of these will be a hit if you serve them at your next party, or just keep them all for yourself as mid-afternoon nibble that’s packed with protein. I hope you’ll give them a try and let me know what you think.

Now, if you want to swing to the complete opposite end of the snack spectrum, check out this blog I just came across,  www.junkfoodblog.com.

Recipe links

All photos by David Peterman unless otherwise noted

Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream, well, Frozen Yogurt

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Mid August seems like the perfect time to spin up a batch of homemade ice cream. Sunny warm lazy days and ice cream go hand-in-hand.

In the Northwest we’ve been reading about sunny warm days, but haven’t actually been experiencing them. Not terribly motivated for ice cream with our chilly summer, I put off making this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe until the last minute. Guess what? The sun finally came out for the first time in nearly a week.

This weekend is supposed to be in the mid-80s and the anticipation of true summer weather is very exciting. I believe I’ll be mixing up another batch of this ice cream because I don’t think what’s in the freezer will last to the weekend.

My “ice cream” is actually frozen yogurt. I had yogurt in the fridge, but no cream, so I thought I’d give it a try. I essentially down-shifted the fat by using whole milk in place of the cream and plain low-fat yogurt in place of the milk. It’s tangy, chocolaty, and wonderful. I like the lighter ice-milk like quality and the tangy zing of the yogurt is refreshing. The texture isn’t creamy smooth, which could be a result of the lower fat or the cocoa powder, or the combination of the two. It’s not off-putting by any means, but curious. I’ll have to try a vanilla version of the recipe and see what happens. Fearing the tanginess of the yogurt would overpower the chocolate, I added 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder as a little boost and the cocoa-forward flavor takes me right back to one of my favorite childhood frozen treats – a fudgesicle.

Because the yogurt was so tangy I increased the sugar from 1/3 cup to ½ cup. The only other minor tweaks were adding a pinch of salt and ½ teaspoon of vanilla.

Katrina of Baking and Boys has the full recipe posted on her blog and she gets a big thank you from me for picking ice cream for this week. I make ice cream and the sun comes out, how is that for positive reinforcement? And a brilliant example of flawed logic, but I’ll still enjoy a scoop while sitting in the sun today.

Recipe link

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 138 recipes completed 83 to go!

All photos by David Peterman unless otherwise noted

Ratatouille Gratin & Operation Frontline

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A crispy layer of bread crumbs adds an element of comfort food to this wonderfully simple vegetable casserole. Pre-baking the eggplant makes it creamy and soft, a beautiful contrast to the zucchini which retain a nice snappy bite.

This dish is inspired by my participation in Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline program, which is a free six week cooking and nutrition class geared to help low income people prepare and eat healthy meals on a very tight budget. This is a national program implemented by different organizations in every community. In Seattle, I volunteer through Solid Ground.

Can cooking on a budget be delicious? Absolutely! One of the things I focus on in the classes I help teach is developing good cooking technique to draw the best flavor out of the ingredients. It’s hard to beat simple ingredients that are well cooked.

It should be no surprise that my enthusiasm for the value of proper cooking technique comes from my experience with Rouxbe online cooking school. The concept of focusing on skills and technique rather than learning how to make a specific recipe really changed the way I cook, so this is how I approach the Operation Frontline classes.

We made this casserole with a simple polenta the first week of class and talked about how to use a chef’s knife and different cutting techniques. I have shared a video demo from Rouxbe of cutting with a chef’s knife in a past post, so this time I’ll share the video demo of how to cut an onion which we practiced in the class this week.

I love recipes that allow for creative license and the ratatouille gratin is very flexible giving you plenty of room to be creative. You can skip the mushrooms, use a mix of zucchini and yellow squash, double the Swiss chard, add in other veggies, or change the spices without any dire consequences. There are, however, a few key steps that will help to make the recipe successful.  

  • Slicing the eggplant and squash evenly is important so the pieces cook in the same amount of time. If the eggplant is too squirrely to make nice slices, trim a small slice off the middle of one side so it will sit securely on the cutting board.
  • Give the onions enough time to sweat down over a medium-low heat to develop their flavor. If you hear a lot of sizzling in the pan and they are beginning to brown, turn the heat down.
  • Taste the onion mixture before assembling the gratin to be sure it has enough seasoning. It should have a deep rich flavor and be on the strong side because it will be tempered by the eggplant and zucchini.

In class we served this over a plain polenta, but here’s a more decadent version from Rouxbe if you feel like indulging. Please take advantage of the free 14-day Rouxbe membership to explore their site. Just click on any of the Rouxbe links from our site to access it. If you love it and want to purchase a membership, you will be helping us raise money for Share Our Strength. We are donating 100% of the commissions we make from membership sign-ups to Share Our Strength.

Recipe Links

All photos by David Peterman unless otherwise noted

Gingered Carrot Cookies…Whoopie…pies!

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These soft cakey cookies packed full of goodies are reminiscent of carrot cake, so I took the obvious next step and filled them with cream cheese frosting.

As is so often the case, I made this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe with what I had on hand. Dried cranberries stood in for raisins and the sweetened coconut was replaced with unsweetened. The cranberries go beautifully with the carrots and the added tartness is a good thing given the extra sugar hit from the filling and icing.

How is it that I’ve never thought to grate two carrots at the same time before today?

There is nothing tricky about making these cookies. They don’t spread much, so I gave them a little pat to flatten the scoops of dough before baking them. The recipe suggests baking for 16-18 minutes; mine were done in 9. I was using a convection fan, which speeds things up a bit, but even so it’s always important to use your best judgment when it comes to baking times. Think of them as more of a hint as to when something should be expected to be done.

Just because I filled and dipped these little treats doesn’t mean they aren’t great just the way they come out of the oven.

To dress them up I made a Carrot-Cardamom Icing to glaze the top of each cookie with a nice blush of orange and add an additional hint of spice. After dipping a cookie top, let it drain by tapping it a few times on a whisk to remove excess icing. Just a thin coating is all that’s needed. Set them aside to dry for a few minutes.

Carrot-Cardamom Icing
2 tablespoons carrot juice*
1 tablespoon buttermilk
1 cup powder sugar, sifted
1/8 teaspoon cardamom (ground from about 3 pods)
Stir the carrot juice, buttermilk and cardamom into the powdered sugar and whisk until smooth.
*if you don’t have carrot juice, just use 3 tablespoons of buttermilk.

Spread a nice layer of cream cheese frosting on half of the cookies and then top each one with a glazed cookie top.

Cream Cheese Filling
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
2 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar (4 ounces), sifted
½ teaspoon lemon juice
Beat the cream cheese and butter using an electric mixer until fluffy. Slowly add the sifted powdered sugar and beat until well combined and smooth. Add the lemon juice and beat to combine. Spread on the cookies to fill.

These aren’t exactly traditional whoopie pies, but they are really tasty. If you would like to read about classic whoopie pies, of course www.whoopiepies.org is the place. It never ceases to amaze me that there is a website for every topic imaginable.

Thank you to Natalia of Gatti Fili E Farina for the fun recipe choice. She has the recipe as Dorie intended posted on her blog. You can always add my embellishments or create your own.

7/11 update: I baked some left over dough as thumbprint cookies filled with the cream cheese frosting and topped with crumbled nuts. They were even better than the whoopie pie style, and easier to make. Aren’t they cute?

Recipe Link

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 137 recipes completed 84 to go!

All photos by David Peterman unless otherwise noted



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