Sunday, September 19, 2010

Summer’s End Peach Cobbler


The weather’s been funny everywhere this summer. It poured rain several of the days I was in Madrid – a pattern the locals told me was normal ahora, pero antes, no! Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we had a cooler than usual July and August. And my facebook-friend Judy, up in Oregon was most unhappy because it either rained incessantly or was boiling hot, nothing like the quintessential blackberry-pickin’ season I always imagined in the northwest.

I wonder if the funny weather is why every peach I tried, this summer have been crummy? I look forward to fresh peaches all year, but every one I’ve tried this year has been, what my mother would call, ‘mealy’.

Last week my husband hopefully brought home one last lovely looking box of peaches. Surely this batch would be different! They were so attractive, a beautiful shade of yellow with lovely red blushes. Today they were perfectly ripe, giving just, so, when you pressed one finger against their delicate complexions.

They tasted lousy.

What does good old Ann Landers say? Or was it Ben Franklin who suggested the connection between lemons and lemonade? But in the case of peaches, it’s cobbler. Tonight we made, and ate, the best peach cobbler I’ve ever eaten. Could it be, the mealier the peach, the better the cobbler?

Pretty easy.

1) I mixed up a batch of my 1960’s Style Buttermilk Biscuits (it’s the same recipe I wrote about earlier this month, in the art-journal entry “Kidhood Memories:1960’s Style Buttermilk Biscuits”) and filled the bottom of a deep dish, square type casserole dish.

2) I set the oven to 400 degrees (instead of the 450 degrees I’d use for biscuits)

3) Cut up 3 large, delicious looking, but mealy tasting yellow free-stone peaches and covered the biscuit dough. Then I topped the peaches with some sugar (maybe ½ a cup?) and a sprinkling of cinnamon.

4) I bakes the cobbler for 20 minutes (checking after 10 and finding it still very much un done). Then I turned off the oven, leaving the pan inside the still hot oven and took my dog for a walk around the park! (Probably for about 20 more minutes). When we returned from the dog walk, I turned the oven back on, but now at 450 degrees. It was done and fork clean, 10 minutes later.

Yummm. The mealier, the better!


Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Kidhood Memories


With my older sister, Trisha, at Pike's Peak Colorado 1962
We thought everybody in the U.S. ate biscuits then
1960's Style Buttermilk Biscuits
We often eat these with homemade Damson Plumm Private Eye Raspberry Jam
Bake 450 degrees Bake 8 – 10 minutes till tops brown
In a bowl Mix the dry stuff: 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda,1/8 - 1/2 cup sugar, some cinnamon (½ teaspoon?)
Make a little well in the dry stuff pour in ¼ cup corn oil and 1 cup buttermilk (if using regular milk*, use 1 tablespoon bak. powder and no baking soda). Do not beat, just mix softly until combined.
Pam spray/oil muffin pan/ cookie sheet/pan
Additions: Raisins or a few blueberries (mix these w/ dry stuff) or A spot of strawberry or raspberry jam in the top of each biscuits (jammy biscuits)
*or make buttermilk substitute: A tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice plus enough milk to make a cup, let stand 5 minutes