Peaches and more peaches

Whilst galavanting up to Bayfield last Tuesday, the peach truck came to the parking lot of Shopko.  My good friend Jane picked my box up along with some blueberries, and I in return, gave her a box of strawberries for her trouble.   So tucked in my frig until yesterday morning was about 60 or so lovely Georgia peaches.  Today was the day where the peaches needed to be mostly dealt with.

I began my day with freezing a bunch of them.  Jane's sister apparently freezes peaches (I have canned them with Jane in the past, but she had to head out to a family reunion) using white grape juice.  So I thought what the heck, it is worth a try.  I don't generally can on my stove, I don't want to damage the glass top, so I have to work around that fact.  Freezing seemed like a good option.

So I bought 2 jugs of white grape juice and then decided I needed more, so I bought a couple additional ones.....  I did not need them.  I only needed one!  Oy, well live and learn.

Plunge peaches into boiling water for a few minutes, then cool them quickly in cold water

Peeled peaches

Sliced peaches

You begin this process with peeling the peaches by dunking them in boiling water for a few minutes- I used 4 minutes for mine.  Pull them out of the water and drop them into cold water for a bit, peel, and slice.  Sprinkle a little lemon juice on them, stir and pack into jars.

I used the approximate guesstimate of 3 peaches per jar- I bought 1.5 pint jars as I like the fact that they were straight for freezing  and for storage in the freezer- and that worked out quite well.  Pack them in pretty tightly, not smashed in, but try to fill in the big gaps.  The 9 jars of peaches took about a half of the jug of white grape juice I had purchased.....  yeah.  Maybe I can make popsicles or something.

Wipe the rims and cover- be sure to leave a 3/4 inch space for expansion

 Fill the jars slowly with white grape juice (you could also use a light sugar syrup), and use a knife to push the peaches around to remove the air bubbles.  Let them sit for a while so the bubbles have a chance to escape and make sure the peaches are about 3/4 inch below the top and they are covered with juice.  You want some expansion room for the freezing liquids.

Wipe the rims and put on the cap.  Then put it in the freezer!

Immediately after that, I had some peeled peaches left and so decided to make a batch of peach freezer jam.

Freezer jam is easy peasy- all you need is the fruit, sugar, pectin, lemon juice and water

For the peach jam you need:

2.5 cups peeled, sliced and then chopped or ground peaches
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
5 cups sugar
1 package of pectin/Surejell/Certo/or equivilant of bulk thickener
3/4 cup water

Basically you mix the peaches with the lemon juice first and then the sugar. Stir and stir
Boil the pectin in the water for a minute, then pour into the fruit and sugar mix and stir for 3 minutes.  Ladle into jars, leave 1/2 inch space, wipe rim, cover and leave on counter for 24 hours and then freeze.  See!!  Easy Peasy and I might even add lemon squeezey!

Aren't these pretty??

Lastly, as I had a messy messy kitchen and a bit of energy left- I made a Peach Blueberry Cobbler that I  adore, but only make a time or two a summer..... for obvious reasons----  YUMMMMMM

Baking in the oven

Oh yeah- this was good!

AND it is even better tomorrow when it is cold!  Sigh....

So it took me a while to clean up the kitchen, and I had done some cleanup as I go, but I sort of hate the cleaning part.

Peach blueberry galette and Sangria!

My dear friend Mark and I made plans waaaaay back in, say January, that on the first day it hits 80 degrees here, we were going to make and drink some Sangria!! There is some sort of story behind this that I don't really remember, but it seemed like a great excuse..... er, um, REASON at  the time.  So of course the first 80 degree day was at some inconvenient time when we were- God forbid- WORKING!!  And so it was the first 80 degree weekend, and then I was off on an adventure of my own..... so dog gone it, we made a date!

So good old Marksie had the wine, the fruit, the brandy, and the yummy homemade salsa and so I needed to provide something besides the glasses and the deck to sit on. Mark suggested/challenged me to dessert.  Maybe a Spanish dessert to go with the salsa and sangria. SPANISH???  Are you MAD????  Oh wait, that's me...  um, so we had a conversation of what that could possibly entail, and a fruit and cinnamon tart was decided upon, so the rest was up to me.

I consulted first of all my favorite cooking blog- The Smitten Kitchen- as Deb bakes some really wonderful things.  I have made a number of dishes/desserts from this website and I highly recommend checking it out.  She has many tarts, fruit desserts and the like on there, but none were exactly what I wanted.  I had blueberries in the refrigerator and I had made a scrumptious peach/blueberry cobbler last summer from Cooking Light Magazine.  I knew I wanted to use those flavors in a pie crusty sort of application.

So I made up my own!

I began by using this recipe for the tart crust- a very buttery, simple crust that would merely enhance the flavors of the fruit.  I used a combination of very ripe and slightly under-ripe peaches, some for flavor and some for texture, plus the blueberries.  I added a minimal amount of sugar and a nice healthy dose of cinnamon.  Wrapped it all up in the rolled dough and sprinkled it with Turbinado sugar. (You should hear how the MA mangles THAT word!)

After reading several of Deb's fruit tart recipes, I decided to use the technique of heating up my pizza stone in the oven for an hour to get it nice and hot.  That added a really great crispness to the crust that did not get soggy, even during yesterday's humidity.

It was REALLY a good recipe in the end, and can be used with any sort of fruit filling.  Actually, you could make something savory with it also, as there is very little sweetness in the crust....  hmmmmm....

Mix dry ingredients, cut up butter

Cut in butter until size of peas

Add ice water and stir until dough just holds together

Slip skins from peaches 

Roll out dough thinly

Peaches, all cut up

Blueberries with peaches 

Roll and pinch dough to make rustic bowl

YAY!

Peach Blueberry Galette

Tart crust:

This is the ingredient list for one galette- I doubled the recipe to make two.  Obviously.

1 cup of flour
1/2 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp salt
6 tablespoon cold butter
icewater

Combine flour, sugar, salt in a bowl.  Cut in butter with a pastry cutter, until butter is in pea sized pieces.  Add small amounts of ice water at a time into the flour mixture until it just rolls up into a ball.  Handle the dough as little as possible to keep it from getting tough.  Cover and place in the refrigerator at LEAST an hour before rolling.

Filling:

per galette-

3 - 4 peaches
1/2 pint blueberries
1/4 - 1/3 cup sugar
1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon

Slip skins from peaches after plunging into boiling water.  Slice peaches into a bowl, and add blueberries.  Add sugar and cinnamon to taste.

Procedure:

About 1/2 hour to 45 minutes before rolling dough, put pizza stone in  425 oven, if you plan to use it.  Other wise heat oven to 425.  Roll out ball of dough very thinly. Spoon fruit into the center of the dough.  Pull and pinch the dough up and around the fruit-  Making a bowl from the dough to keep the juices from running out.  It will be very rustic and informal looking.  Moisten dough with a tiny bit of water and sprinkle with turbinado or white sugar if desired.  Work quickly so the dough can be transferred to the pizza stone without collapse. (yes, I had that problem!  with one of them)  I rolled my dough on the counter, assembled it on a cookie sheet and then slid it onto the pizza stone.  You can figure your own way, too!  Bake about 20 minutes, check for browning, and continue baking until the crust is light brown and the filling bubbling.  Transfer galette from the stone or pan to a cooling rack so the crust stays crisp and doesn't get soggy.

Now try NOT to eat it until your guest arrives with his Sangria!  THAT was hard!

In case you are interested.........

SANGRIA

Fill a beautiful glass pitcher with fresh, frozen fruit- orange and lemon slices, fresh pineapple, strawberries, nectarines.....

Add a yummy, fruity Cabernet Sauv, VERY COLD - we used Columbia-Crest Two Vines!  Add a 1/2 cup of brandy and a can of white soda......  It is infinitely more fun to do this in layers- fruit, wine, brandy, soda, repeat!  Then try to take pictures until you are silly with laughter and you haven't EVEN had more than a sip!!

Sangria pitcher and salsa

Did you know that pineapple soaked in wine is tingly??

There is NOTHING like a little Sangria joy! And it goes well with fruit tart!

Just Peachy!

It has been a busy few days here of birthday month!  One of the things that I have been really busy doing is dealing with a couple boxes of peaches.  Actually it was more like 4 boxes of peaches, as my dear friend Jane and I canned up all 4 of them.

Nice apron, right??  Lol

Every July a truck arrives in good old Park Falls from Georgia, laden with peaches and this year, blueberries as well!  I have  been participating in this event for the last 2 years.  It yields some wonderful fresh tasting fruit that we really enjoy during the long, cold winters up here.  Totally worth the 4.5 hours of work that it involves.

The day began with me arriving at the Strand summer kitchen, a lovely place to hang out.  Jane and I had a great time catching up on the events of our lives during the past 4 weeks.  We had picked up the fruit and laid them out on a rack for nice even ripening.  

Jane beginning to scald and peel peaches, you can see racked peaches behind her.

We used her super fast dishwasher to clean and sterilize the jars- nice!  This is a super nice space to work in, so well organized and so easy to clean!  Very Jane!  Jane did the peeling and halving, I filled the jars, made the syrup (very lightly sweet), put on the lids and loaded them into the waterbath.  It sounds like I did a lot, but really the peach peeler did most of the work!  

Clean and sterilized jars ready to go

Cutie pie!  

Great space to work

Peaches almost ready for their boiling water bath!

A finished pot of peaches.

Some of the finished jars.  

I think we ended up with at least 45 jars of peaches.  I'll have to check for the final count.  We began the process about 9:30 and finished up a bit after 2.  It was a great day.

Then last night I made this:

Blueberry/Peach cobbler

Blueberry Peach Cobbler
From Cooking Light magazine

Preheat oven to 375

5 pounds of peaches, peeled, pitted, sliced
2 T. lemon juice
1 cup sugar/divided
3/8 tsp salt, divided
6.75 ounces flour (about 1.5 cups), plus 2 T.
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 c. butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 c. buttermilk
2 cups blueberries
2 Tablespoons turbinado sugar

Place peaches in bowl, toss with lemon juice, then 3/4 cup sugar,1/8 tsp salt, and 2 T flour.  Pour into 13 x 9 pan that was sprayed with cooking spray

Mix flour, baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt in bowl and mix.  Cream butter and 1/4 c. sugar in large bowl, beat until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, mix well after each addition.  Stir in vanilla.  Add flour mixture and buttermilk alternately to butter mixture. just until combined.  Stir in blueberries.

Pour over peaches, even out, and sprinkle on turbinado sugar.  Place dish on foil lined rimmed baking sheet (in case of boil over) and place in oven.  Bake about 1 hour until topping is browned.

12 servings, approximately 303 calories for 3/4 cup

It is divine!!


Until next time, be a joy GIVER!!  And it helps to hang out with other joy givers as well!!  Right Jane?  :)

By the way, if you want to see a blog with REALLY great recipes, go to The Sunday Baker!  Tanya is a wonderful cook, writer, blogger and friend.  Check it out here!