Low Guilt Pie

There I was reading Cookiecrumb's latest tirade against the twin evils of white sugar, refined flour and fat, and I thought, "She's right! Summer fruits, when they are ripe and perfect, don't need the sugar embellishment. Let me try a pie with no sugar whatsoever."

So, I cut up one big peach, two or three nectarines and a small handful of strawberries, seasoned them with nothing but freshly grated nutmeg, and encased them in a Star Dough pastry. The entire prep took about 10 minutes, no more.

Slid it into a 375 degree oven for about 20-25 minutes, until the crust browned and the fruit softened and was artfully tipped here and there in black.

I cut a slice of galette as soon as it emerged from the oven and cooled enough. It did taste fresh but I have to admit that I missed that sweet hit. For me, it was like low-fat cookies, sort of a letdown. I agree with Cookiecrumb that you don't need to embellish fresh fruit but, given that you are going to cook it, I'd say go ahead add a driz of honey or a spoonful of sugar. This galette would have benefitted from just one tablespoon of sugar, adding a hint of sweetness without masking the fresh ripeness of the fruit.

Our strategy is to give at least half of what I bake away to the neighbors, which promotes good neighbor karma while we get a taste of the goodies without the calories of eating the whole thing. I'm going back to Full Guilt Pie - in moderation.

I Made A Mess

A big mess. Even though I used parchment paper, the baking sheet and the bottom of the oven were a total mess after baking this galette.

Three peaches - peeled, sliced and tossed in a combination of about 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1 tablespoon of corn starch and a generous grating of fresh nutmeg whisked together. I added the blackberries on a whim just because they were there on the counter and I thought the colors would be fine together. Piled into the middle of a rolled out DuFour puff pastry crust and wrapped up the ends around the fruit. Slid into a 375 degree oven for about 35-45 minutes until the crust puffed and browned beautifully.

The peaches were so fresh and brimming with tangy flavor, the blackberries were sweet on the outside but tart to the bite and the pastry was light as summer clothing. Easy to make, nothing heavy or cloying, just sweet summer fruit with a little twang on the tongue at the end.

Unfortunately, the pastry puffed open during the baking, spilling peach juice out two sides to stick to the baking sheet and glue itself to the bottom of the oven. I'll need a putty knife to scrape up that mess but it was totally worth it.

In For A Pound

We ate too much.

We definitely ate too much.

Even though I didn't eat half of my pulled pork sandwich, determined to save room for dessert, I still felt too full as we left the dining room at the SRJC Culinary Café.

The dessert menu was simply too tempting. How does one choose between upside down apple tart, peach shortcake, and a hazelnut gelato sandwich?

With growing awareness of our increasing middles, we decided to split a dessert. It was still truly piggy, but we couldn't resist.

This is just half, believe it or not, of our Peach Shortcake with Crème Fraiche and Fresh Berries. Oh, and Raspberry Coulis. Don't forget the raspberry coulis! This little beauty is shown on a saucer, so it's not as completely decadent as you might otherwise think but, believe me, it was still at least a venial sin.

The shortbread part was actually surprisingly light, with a consistency more like a pastry shell than true shortcake - in a good way. The fresh peaches and berries with the vanilla bean crème fraiche were plenty rich without a heavy shortcake to boot.

But, we still ate too much. Fuel for the tour of Luther Burbank's house and garden, and a good excuse for a long nap when I got home.

Fruity Hammy Yummy

Turns out that prosciutto works well with yellow peaches as well as white ones and the more traditional cantaloupe.

I added the grapes for color - they toned nicely with the ham. But, 'twas a mistake to eat the grapes first - they are so sweet, they made the very ripe peaches taste slightly bitter afterward. So, we ate the peaches and prosciutto first, then the grapes.

Problem solved.

Evolution

The first of many fresh fruit platters we will enjoy this summer, we collected the makings for this one on our way home from Monterey at farm stands along the way. This is our favorite summer dessert, a selection of the best seasonal fruits simply washed and arranged on a plate - they need no embellishment. At this halcyon time in the year, you can find ripe Bing cherries, strawberries and white peaches all at the same time.

The cherries are firm and richly flavored, paired on their long, lime green stems. The peaches are honey-sweet and beautiful - we even enjoy the gently fuzzy skins. The strawberries anchor the plate with their fragrant, seedy bounty.

As the summer evolves, the peaches and cherries will be replaced by other fruits but in California the strawberries are the stalwarts - they will continue to give us richly scented fruits until the end of October, as each different variety becomes ripe.

But that first plate full of goodness is always special, a small celebration of the start of summer.

Ingenue vs. Siren

We've been having plain sliced peaches for dessert for weeks, which is not exactly a hardship, I admit, but we liked yesterday's black and white dessert so much that I decided to try a riff with peaches.

I used the same Bellwether Farms fromage blanc to fill the middle of halved, pitted peaches and they were delicious as well as deliciously easy.

Note that some of these peaches are darker than others - those are the rest of the smoked peaches we made a few days prior. My Beloved and I can't decide which we preferred - the smoked or the fresh peaches. Both were equally delicious, but quite different.

The fresh peaches and the fresh cheese are naturals together - simple, straightforward in a no-nonsense, stand-up kind of way. The smoked peaches were softer, slightly sweeter, more complex, darker, if you know what I mean - the difference between a light romantic comedy and a film noir drama (with a happy ending).

Heat Wave

We had a heat wave - in fact, two heat waves, so far - here in Northern California. September and October are our warmest months and this year we've already had more than our share of hot days.

We have learned to open all doors and windows at night, then to close up the house early in the morning to keep that cool air inside but, even so, by dinner time, it's too hot to turn on an oven or a burner.

However, the idea of raw pork was shudder-producing, so we decided to barbecue our dinner to beat the heat. The bone-in chops went right on the grill, but away from the direct heat of the fire, giving them a smoky-but-not-burny flavor. The corn, ditto. Delicious, both of them. But the hit of the evening was the peaches.

I "planked" the peaches, cooking them over the direct heat of the fire but shielded by a cedar shingle*, the thin end of which smoldered and smoked, lending its flavor to the sizzling peach halves on top. They were a killer accompaniment to the pork, made sweeter by the concentrating heat of the fire but still with that peach kick that keeps them from being cloying.

Good meal for a heat wave.

*If you want to try this, be sure to ask your local lumberman for untreated cedar shingles - you don't want fire retardant in your food.

An Abundance of Peaches

My neighbors love me this year. I am building good karma by giving them dozens and dozens of peaches. In contrast to the rest of my garden, which hasn't exactly been a cornucopia this year, our peach tree is laden with fruit and drops at least a dozen peaches a day. So, I give them away, eat them fresh with every meal, and still look for new ways to enjoy peaches.

Trolling the internet for recipes, I came across this one for a peach cake - and now I can't recall where I found it! Senior Moment - sorry! If this looks like your recipe, please let me know and I'll credit you with copious apologies.

Anyway, it's basically a single-layer, very buttery spice cake baked with fresh sugared peach slices on top. As it bakes, the peaches soften and the cake batter rises to surround them. The recipe calls for a springform cake pan but I couldn't find mine so I made it in this fluted pan with the removable bottom and the batter was thick enough that it didn't leak through.

The recipe called for walnuts in the batter, too, but I forgot to add them so I sprinkled some on top instead to crisp as the cake baked and I did like the interplay of the lightly crunchy nuts and the soft peach cake.

Because my peaches are not all that sweet, I sprinkled the top lightly with maple sugar instead of the powdered sugar the recipe recommended and that was a home run - really a nice flavor complement to the fruit.

Next time I go out into my neighborhood giving away peaches, I hope I can find the recipe and include that with the peaches, too!

Peaches and Cheese

Since our peach crop came in with a rush in these warm late-summer days, we are eating lots and lots of peaches. For breakfast, on granola. For dessert, in cakes and cobblers. I haven't figured out how to showcase them as a main course yet but I'm working on it - maybe smoked with roast pork... I'll let you know how it turns out.

Perhaps my favorite way to eat them, so far, is simply peeled, sliced and eaten plain with a dab of chevre on the fork. The meltingly sweet-tart fruit and the tangy chevre excite nerve endings on my tongue that don't usually sing together so the tune is a little ragged but attention-getting. I could write a song about the combination of chevre and peaches.

Cheese and peaches, peaches and cheese,
Dance on the tongue, sweet-tart as you please.
Down in the garden, dropping each day
More and more peaches are falling away
From branches still laden with fruit
Cheese made from goat's milk will surely suit
To enhance the flavors of both fruit and cheese
So please give me even more peaches and cheese!

Okay, okay, I can hear you groaning out there. Enough bad poetry for one day!

Musical Fruit

This summer, we are playing Musical Fruit. Several area food bloggers and friends have gardens this year with some overlap in produce but we each have a surfeit of fruit the others don't have so we are moving bags of lovely local produce from one house to another. Like the old game of musical chairs, except nobody loses!

Chilebrown and Ms. Goofy gave me apples, chilis and tomatoes; they got two nice bags of peaches. Cookiecrumb brought me pears from her overabundant tree; I gifted her with more of the peaches from my own Type A tree, and included some extra bay leaves from the box of spices Sam and Naomi gave me when they came to dinner. I sent S & N home with a bag of peaches, too, by the way. My neighbors always give me cheerful greetings and occasional baked goods - so, this year, each had a surprise bag of peaches hanging from their doorknobs. Cousin J-Yah gifted us with pears and strawberries - bet you can guess what we reciprocated with.

These are some of Chilebrown's tomatoes, simply dressed with fresh mozzarella, a crumble of chevre (we loved the mild/tangy combo of cheeses) and a drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette. I'm making a tart today with Cookiecrumb's pears. We devoured J-Yah's strawberries fresh with a little fromage blanc. I hope they are all having fun, too, with my musical peaches.

Windfall Profits

Today, when the oil companies are making huge profits off our sorry selves, I was annoyed until I realized that I made windfall profits of my own this year.

I invested nothing in my huge crop of peaches except the occasional dousing with water from the shower. No fertilizer, petrochemical or otherwise. No pesticides whatever - it seems that bugs don't bother with peaches' fuzzy skin. The energy came direct from the sky in the form of abundant California sunshine. Even the tree itself was a gift.

So, I guess I can't complain much when I fill the tank of my reasonably fuel-efficient car. My kind of windfall profits are even better than Exxon's.

Gifts That Keep On Giving

Only the prosciutto on this plate was not a gift.

The peaches came from our wedding present tree and the plate itself was a gift from my Virginia brother and his wife, who brought it with them last Christmas.

The idea of using fruit and prosciutto together was a gift from my mother, who first tasted prosciutto and melon in Italy many years ago and told me about it; the inventiveness to try other fruits is also her gift - she was always one to experiment.

The "mmmms" and "aaaaahs" that come from serving this appetizer are also gifts of a different kind, compliments that make my head (and heart) swell. Sweet!

The Peaches Are Coming! The Peaches Are Coming!

The other day, while picking lemons, I checked on the peach tree that my work colleagues at SUNY Brockport gave My Beloved and me for a wedding present nine years ago. It lives down in the lower 40, too, so I don't visit it often.

It is simply covered with peaches this year, so many that even though they are still pretty small the branches are bowed down under their weight.

In this strange growing year, when zucchinis are difficult and tomatoes small and green, the peach tree seems to be thriving with abundant fruit and lush green foliage. Go figure!

Next Summer's Peaches

While we were in Paris, our peach and flowering crabapple trees burst into colorful to life again. Luckily, the flowering lasted long enough for us to enjoy it upon our return.

For my Easter dinner table, I needed a few flowers to fill the lovely little vases our friends J and J gave me but as I snipped I realized that I was reducing my future peach harvest for a little frivolous beauty today.

Life is full of tough choices; this time, aesthetics won over practicality.