Cherry Peach Galette with Cornmeal Crust

I’ve been on a bit of a purge lately. Cleaning out closets, gathering bags of stuff to donate-- I’ve been attempting to rid myself of some of the clutter I’ve amassed. After weeks of putting it off, I finally talked myself into tackling the kitchen.

Oh, my tiny little kitchen.. A kitchen so small, I can touch both sides of it at the same time. Without stretching. I can mop the whole tile floor without ever stepping foot on it. And don’t even try to open the fridge and the dishwasher at the same time. With a tiny little kitchen, space is at a premium. The majority of my cabinets measure less than 12 inches across and my counterspace is almost nonexistent. Most of my appliances (with the exception of my KitchenAid mixer) live in the space between the top of my cabinets and the ceiling. Not quite ideal for someone who’s only 5’2”.

Although I have minimal space to store things, I find myself acquiring more and more stuff every time I turn around. Utensils, gadgets, appliances. I have more stuff than I know what to do with, and way more stuff than I have room for. So I sucked it up and tackled the clutter, throwing out or donating everything I didn’t use or really need. And it was kind of liberating.

No matter how many cookies I make, I’m sure I don’t need 8 spatulas. Gone. The electric carving knife that’s only been out of the box once? Gone. The unmatching, lidless plastic lunchmeat containers that tumble out whenever I open the cabinet? Trash. The two bamboo steamers that have never been down from the top of my fridge in the entire 5+ years I’ve lived here? Gifted to Boyfriend. I felt so accomplished in my cleaning, I shifted my attention from the top of the fridge to inside.

Leftovers + veggies that need to be used NOW = Another round of Chicken Ropa Vieja. Boom. Dinner for 3 days and no more half used things hanging out in the back of the fridge. But wait. What’s this bag of cherries still doing in here? Huh. Kind of forgot about them. Guess it’s time to take a break from cleaning to preheat the oven. We’re making pie.

Or a galette to be more specific. A rustic free-form pie baked on a baking sheet rather than a pie plate. It’s pie for people who are intimidated by pie. No double crusts, no crimping, no fuss. You can get into this pie game, I promise.

Pair the cherries up with some juicy peaches and toss them around in some sugar and vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract). They play very well together. Wrap them up in some amazing cornmeal pie crust. It's flaky, tender, and has just a touch of texture and crunch. Sprinkle it all over with sugar and let it all get golden and bubbly. Serve it up with some sweetened whipped cream or ice cream and you won't be disappointed.

Leftovers should always be this good.

**Note: I'm not sure how readily available fresh cherries and peaches are anymore. I kind of got into vacation mode very early, and sorta forgot to put this post up when I made it.. almost a month ago.. My bad. Feel free to substitute frozen for fresh. Or throw some delicious apples in it instead!

Strawberry Peach Jam

I seem to be living a very eco-hippie life right now. Not really by choice either. My 16-year old car has recently taken to overheating to the point of smoke pouring from under the hood, and with my very limited (non-existent) budget, she’s been sidelined in the parking lot in favor of taking the bus to and from work every day. Yay public transit. And then there’s my washer. My free, hand-me-down, probably older than I am washer I acquired from a lady at work who was moving and couldn’t take it with her. After what I assume was a long and productive life, it’s finally given up. It doesn’t spin anymore, so there’s no real washing going on. With no way to get my clothes to a laundromat (because I’m NOT taking them on the bus), I’m hand washing my clothes in a bucket. Luckily my free, hand-me-down dryer from yet another coworker is still going strong, so the neighbors don’t have to see my unmentionables hanging out on my back patio to dry.

So I figure, while I’m embracing this forced hippie life, why not dive in even further. Let's take up canning! Because obviously, I needed a new hobby. (Right.) Now trust me, I had no interest in canning. At all. The thought had never even crossed my mind. But then I made my own barbecue sauce. And then Boyfriend raved so much about it, he wanted to give some to his brother and coworker for them to try.

It’s one thing to make a batch and put it in my fridge to use. I have a very high tolerance for expiration dates (I mean, those are really just suggestions, right? As long as it smells fine..), and if I make myself sick, well it’s my own fault for being stupid. And it's fine to give it to Boyfriend who used it on nearly everything almost immediately. It’s a completely different thing to give it to someone else who may or may not use it in a timely manner. And I don’t want to kill anyone with spoiled food. So I started Googling how to can homemade barbecue sauce. And found out just how easy it really is. Boiling water, a big pot, and some Mason jars. That’s really about all you need. Obviously there’s a bit more to it than that, but if you’ve got those, you’re nearly ready to can!

After my first BBQ attempt, I was hooked. I wanted to can everything in sight! With my aversion of all things veggie, the next obvious step was to make jam. Lots of jam. Blackberry, strawberry, cherry.. Jam, jam, jam! And it’s all so easy! I may never, ever buy jam at the store again. At this very moment, I have 4 different types of hanging out in my pantry. Which is perfect, since I'm living on a PB&J budget with my hippie ways.

Making and canning jam isn’t as scary as it seems. I went from thinking about canning, to reading books about canning, to actually canning my own jam in the course of an afternoon. 1 afternoon! The next morning I had toast and jam for breakfast. My own jam. That I made. Jam that spread just like Smuckers. And tasted just as good! If I can figure it out in my tiny little kitchen (and win a 1st place Blue Ribbon at the Ohio State Fair for my first attempt at Cherry Jam!), I have all the faith that you can too.

 

I wish I could go into all the details and specifics of the canning process for you, but honestly, I don’t really know them all. Which is why I haven’t progressed much past jam. (And because of that whole veggie aversion thing.) I will say that it’s very important to know the difference between water bath processing and pressure canning, and which you should use for your creations. Water bath processing is simply boiling the jars in water for a period of time. This method of processing is fine for fruit based products, such as jam, because the majority of fruit is high in acidity, which bacteria generally don’t like to hang out in. Boiling the jars will kill off what bacteria might still be hanging around. Pressure canning requires special equipment that uses pressure (obviously) to heat the jars to a temperature higher than boiling. Unlike fruit, veggies are generally low in acidity, which makes them perfect playgrounds for all kinds of yuckies that can make you sick. To kill the bacteria and prevent spoilage, you need heat that’s well above temperatures that boiling alone can reach, which is where the pressure canner comes in. There’s a bit more to canning than that, so I definitely recommend doing a little research before diving headfirst into it.

If you’re into the book reading thing, I highly recommend Canning & Preserving with Ashley English. This is the one I read nearly cover to cover before I started. It’s easy to read and understand, especially that science-y part about the pH levels (high vs low acidity). And of the 6 books I got from the library on canning, this is the one I liked the most. There’s also the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, which is written by the experts of all things canning, so you know they know what they’re talking about. If you’re more into the web surfing thing, check out the Ball website for quick reference on the basics of canning, as well as tons of recipes to get you started. So what are you waiting for? Go forth and jam!

Peach Hand Pies

I think I have the power to change the world. Like, seriously. I don’t believe in most of that new age stuff, but I think maybe that “law of attraction” thing might have something going for it. You know, that “think it and it’ll be true” theory. Lately, I keep thinking about something, and bam! There it is. Like the sweltering heat. During Ice Cream Week, I said how much I hated it and how done I was with it. The very next day, it was a comfortable 80 degrees, with not one single 90 degree day since. While baking for the fair, my initial vanilla cupcakes didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped. I thought to myself, “I’m going to need a new recipe.” Oh look, My Baking Addiction just put up a recipe for vanilla cupcakes. So I baked them. And they won. 1st place. And most recently, I somehow convinced Joy the Baker, unbeknownst to her, that I needed a recipe to use up the gorgeous peaches my mom brought over from a local farm. The next morning I turn on my computer, and boom. She’s got a recipe for Peach Blueberry Pie.

Watch out world. I’ve apparently got some superpowers.

Because I can’t do anything full-sized, I decided to make them into mini-pies instead (without the blueberries). I’d made strawberry hand pies about a week before for a (not-my-own) family cookout, which I was in too much of a hurry to snap more than 1 picture of. So I thought I’d give peach a try as well, using Joy the Baker’s recipe instead. Searching around for a reference of how much filling to use for a hand pie brought me to Smitten Kitchen's Bourbon Peach Hand Pies. Mmm. I loved the bourbon in my Peach Cobbler, and this is an adaptation I know Joy would approve of.

Awhile back, I asked my fellow Facebookers how they made their pie crusts. It seemed like almost everyone did something different! Some used all butter, some nothing but shortening, some used lard, some did a more than 1. Well that didn’t solve my first time pie baking dilemma! I had no idea which to use! So I turned to Google to figure out what the difference was. Here’s what I found out from a very good explanation from Baking Bites:

*Butter is made up of mostly fat with a bit of water (about 1/5th of it). When the butter melts in the oven, it releases that water as steam, which creates a little pocket of air. All these little pockets of air create the layers in your crust that make it flaky. The butter also contributes to the overall flavor of the crust.

*Shortening is all fat, no water. When the shortening melts in the oven, it makes the crust even more tender than butter does, because you’re not losing any of it to steam, so every bit of the fat is soaking into the crust. However, without the steam, you don’t get the quite the flakiness you would with butter, nor are you getting much flavor.

*Lard is a bit of both worlds. It’s got most of the properties of shortening, being 100% fat, with the bonus of added flavor.

Well, I don’t generally keep lard on hand, so that option was out. I decided to adapt Joy’s to use a combo with a 3:1 butter to shortening ratio. I wanted the flavor and flakiness of butter without sacrificing some of the tenderness of the shortening. And it came out beautifully. Can I say how absolutely in love I am with making pie crust now? Seriously. I’m going to turn into a pie making machine soon! That 30x30 goal is going to be smashed! And I may have to change my stance on baked fruit. Cause between the peach cobbler, the strawberry pies, and these peach hand pies, I couldn’t stop myself from devouring them. These are sweet with a little hint of spice, and the perfect little hand-held size to grab a couple on every pass through the kitchen. (Which is exactly how the strawberry version disappeared. At the cookout, every time we saw Stacey’s husband, Bryan, he had a pie in his mouth and 2 in his hand.)

I realized with the strawberry version that 1 slit in the top is sufficient. 2 looks like a vampire attacked them.

I’m already envisioning an apple and a pumpkin version of these coming soon. And I’m excited to try out my new toy I found at Target the other day. (Yet another mind suggestion example?) I can’t wait for fall!

Brown Butter Bourbon Peach Cobbler

I am so ready for summer to be over. I’m sick of stifling heat and smothering humidity. I’m tired of 90 degree days. I’m done with feeling like I need to shower again as soon as I step outside, even though I’ve just showered a half an hour ago. I hate having to stop and think whether I even put deodorant on today, because it sure isn’t working anymore if I did, since I’m covered in sweat. I’m done. with. summer. The only thing I’ll miss—all the fresh fruit.

After a marathon, late-night, mad rush of baking for the fair last weekend, I thought I’d have a little baking hiatus for a week or so to let myself recover. By Tuesday, I was already itching to get back in the kitchen. I just couldn’t decide what to make. I thought about muffins, but wasn’t really feeling it. I didn’t want to do cookies or cupcakes again. Then my mom dropped off 3 fresh peaches from Lynd’s Fruit Farm—problem solved! Peach cobbler it is!

I’m not a fan of baked fruit. I don’t like the squishy texture of it. So I generally shy away from baking things like cobblers and pies and such. But peaches are one of my favorite fruits. So I thought I’d give it a try. After browsing through peach cobbler pictures on Tastespotting, I saw one that said “brown butter and bourbon” in the description. SOLD!

I’ve never made a cobbler before (check that off my 30x30 list!), so I had no idea how easy it was to whip up. No mixers. Staple pantry ingredients. Dump it all in a pan and bake. Who knew? Despite my aversion to baked fruit, I gobbled this thing up in no time! Serve it still warm with a scoop of melty ice cream—it's amazing. It’s buttery and gooey, with just the perfect cinnamon spice, and a bit of a nutty flavor from the brown butter and bourbon. I’m still weirded out by the squishy fruit, but I’ll get over that, because I’d definitely make this one again.