WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU PEACHES…

Posted in Desserts, Sweets by sallybr

MAKE A PEACH PIE!

MAYBE TWO?

Actually, the title of this post should be “When friends give you a bushel of peaches….” Our great friends (and neighbors) went for a long trip during the Summer, and asked us two important favors. “Use our swimming pool as often as possible” and “Harvest all our veggies and fruits and enjoy them”. !!!!!!

Yes, you are all allowed to be jealous, not everyone has the same good luck… These friends are beyond special for many reasons, the pool and the fruits don’t even make it into the top five!

Besides being fantastic folks, they are great gardeners. If my beloved husband and I would ask you to stop by to “harvest and enjoy” our garden, you’d be lucky to leave with a skinny zucchini (Skinny Zucchini, too bad I already named my blog!), a few unripe tomatoes, and a tiny bunch of basil. This is not the case with our neighbors, who mean business in the garden. We had a major peach invasion of our home: at least one hundred (probably more, we stopped counting after a while) gorgeous pieces of fruit!

DH came to the rescue, as he usually does in fruity situations. As a matter of fact, if a pie has a lattice, then you can be sure I wasn’t involved. This time I took a completely secondary role, washing the dishes and admiring my beloved’s skill producing two gorgeous pies after 10pm on a work day. Sorry, ladies, he’s definitely taken! 😉

PEACH PIE
(recipe adapted from Joy of Cooking, 2nd edition)

Para receita em portugues, visite o Cantinho Brasileiro na pagina seguinte

10-12 peaches, white or yellow fleshed
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 + 1/2 Tbs cornstarch
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 + 1/2 T butter
1 Tbs lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk, beaten with a little water (egg wash)

1 recipe of pie crust (click here for my favorite) or store bought, good quality pie crust

Heat the oven to 450F.

Peel, core, and cut the pieces into slices and add to a large bowl. Combine the brown sugar, salt, cornstarch, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and sift the mixture all over the fruit, mixing well.

Roll half of the pie dough to cover the bottom of a 9-inch pan, and add the fruit mixture to it. Sprinkle lemon juice all over, and dot with butter.

Roll the second half of the dough, and form a lattice. Cover the pie, brush the crust with egg wash, sprinkle with a little cinnamon and sugar, and place it in the oven. After 10 minutes, reduce the temperature to 350F and bake for 35 to 45 minutes more, until the crust is golden, and you can see the juices bubbling through the opening.

Cool it over a rack, and serve with or without whipped cream (freshly whipped, of course!)

ENJOY!

Here are some photos of the pie in the making….

Gorgeous peaches, thanks to our dear neighbors

Assembling the pies….

Into the oven they both went…

para receita em portugues, siga o link

2Sep2009

A PEACHY SALAD FOR A SUNNY DAY!

Posted in Poultry, Salads by sallybr

The end of August makes me apprehensive, because Summer is my favorite season. But in the Southwest the heat lingers on, so we remain in the mood for light, refreshing food. This salad is a great example, in that it contains only 3 ingredients: chicken breasts, peaches and cucumbers, plus a tasty mix of yogurt and spices that joins them together.

This recipe was in my “to make soon” folder for a year (shame on me!), since I first saw it in the popular food blog Just Bento.

CHICKEN AND YOGURT SALAD WITH CUCUMBERS AND PEACH
(adapted from this recipe; receita em portugues no final do texto)

9 oz. boneless, skinless chicken breast (2-3 halves, depending on size)
1/8 cup soy sauce
1 piece ginger (about 1 inch, peeled, slightly bruised to release flavor)
1/2 tsp salt
1 T fresh Italian parsley, minced
1/2 English seedless cucumber
1/4 tsp. ground cardamon
1/4 tsp. ground coriander
1 Tbs. finely chopped fresh mint
1/2 cup plain thick (Greek) yogurt
2 ripe peaches
salt and pepper to taste

Start by poaching the chicken. In a pan large enough to hold them in a single layer add enough water to barely cover the pieces, mix in the soy sauce, ginger, salt and parsley. Add the chicken breasts and bring the liquid to a boil. Once it boils, immediately cover the pan and remove it from the heat, leaving it undisturbed for 15 minutes. Remove the chicken breasts, discard the cooking liquid and allow the meat to completely cool. Cut them into chunks.

Using a mandoline, cut the cucumber into paper-thin slices.

Peel the peaches and also cut them into chunks, slightly smaller than the chicken pieces.

Combine the yogurt with the spices and mint. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Taste and add a little salt if needed. Season with freshly ground black pepper.

Enjoy!

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30Aug2009

BBA#15: ITALIAN BREAD

Posted in BBA Challenge, Breads by sallybr

Fifteen breads down, twenty-eight to go…

Once more I should say that all recipes from the challenge can be found here, a must-have book for any serious (or beginner) bread baker.

Reinhart’s Italian Bread is quite similar to the previous one (French Bread), except that it takes a “biga” instead of a “poolish”. No need to run away all scared, those are terms to describe the pre-mixture of flour, water, and yeast, that generally ferments for 24 hours before being used in the final dough. Usually a “biga” is firmer (contains less water).

For this bread, I changed the method of kneading. Instead of adding the dough to the Kitchen Aid and watching the machine do its job, I kneaded it myself, but used my favorite method: folding. I put the advice from bakers over at “The Fresh Loaf” to work, folding the dough twice, at 40 and 80 minutes, then forming a “boule” at 120 minutes. One more hour rising, and into the oven it went. These pictures show the second folding (made in two directions), and the “boule” right after shaping. Notice how bubbly it was, even before the final rise.

After 1 hour at room temperature, the dough rose about 1.5X of its original size, as expected. It had a spongy texture, airy and light. It lost some of it when I dumped it into my clay pot, but not much. It had good enough oven spring to recover.

This bread is spectacular, the crumb has excellent texture, the crust is not too hard, not too soft, just right. As my husband put it, “it is not very easy to stop eating it”. Indeed. It was a wise decision to make half the recipe, because there is only so much running one can do. 😉

A final shot of the crumb…

29Aug2009

Friday Night Dinner

Posted in Pork by sallybr

Fridays are wonderful! We’d like to plan a special dinner that opens the door to the weekend, but, let’s face it, Friday is still a work day. So, coming up with a special meal is challenging. If you suffer from this “Friday Night Dilemma”, let me rescue you with a simple dish that delivers great flavor, elegance and a wonderful ending to your week.

PORK MEDALLIONS WITH MUSTARD-CAPER SAUCE
(adapted from Simple Recipes, recipe originally published in Bon Appetit)

1 lb pork tenderloin, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 white onion, finely diced
1 cup chicken broth (homemade if possible!)
4 Tbsp whipping cream
3 Tbsp drained capers
2 Tbps good quality mustard

If your pork slices are not even, use a mallet to gently pound them into 1/2 inch thickness. Season with salt and black pepper. Melt the butter in a heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pork to the skillet and sauteé until it’s brown and cooked through, about 2 minutes per side. Remove pork slices to another plate as you proceed to make the sauce.

Add the diced onions to the skillet and stir for about 1 minute. Add chicken broth and cream. Boil until the sauce is thick enough to coat a spoon, stirring up the browned bits. It should take a little over 5 minutes. Mix in the capers and mustard; return the pork to the sauce. Simmer the mixture until the pork is heated through, about 2 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

ENJOY!

Serves 3. (original recipe says it serves 4, but we respectfully disagree…)

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