Super Simple Free Form Peach Tart

This is a super quick, insanely easy dessert that is both beautiful and tasty, and will impress your guests. I use a store bought pie crust. The Pillsbury ones are great, and are usually in the dairy aisle near the butter. Don't get the preformed shell in a foil plate... no no no! :) Get the kind that comes two to a package in a rolled form.

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Filling:

3 C. good, ripe, fragrant peaches, peeled and sliced in about 1/4-1/2 " slices
1/4 C sugar
1 T lemon juice
4 tsp. flour
a pinch of cinnamon (or nutmeg or both)

Extras:

1 egg (for brushing on crust before baking)
Turbinado sugar (a larger crystal than normal sugar) for sprinkling on crust before baking


Directions:

1.  Take crust out of box and allow it to come to room temperature (leave plastic wrapping on it).

2.  In a bowl, combine sugar, flour and cinnamon/nutmeg. Add peaches and lemon juice and stir to coat peaches.

3.  Put parchment paper on a large baking sheet. This is a MUST, unless you want to risk juices oozing out and your tart sticking fast to the baking sheet! Roll out dough and lay on parchment. Here's where I mess with the edges a bit so the final product ends up looking homemade. Just pinch, stretch, etc. the edges a bit to make shape a little less perfectly round.

4.  Put peach mixture in the center of the circle, leaving about 2" of dough visible around peaches.

5.  Fold dough up on top of peaches in sections, for the look you see in my pictures.

6.  Beat the egg a bit, and brush top and sides of dough. Sprinkle turbinado sugar on the egg coated surfaces.

7.  Bake 375 F for 40-45 min or until center is bubbly and crust is a lovely deep golden brown.

8.  Serve with sweetened whipped cream or a little vanilla frozen yogurt. OR just eat it right up!

ENJOY!

Coconut Chip Brown Butter Cookies

We are headed out to visit my parents this weekend to celebrate my dad's birthday. I always seem to make a dessert he adores to make him smile. Mom's birthday falls two days after the first of the year, so everyone is all holiday-ed out by then and she never seems to have much of a celebration. This year dad will get his special fruit tart, but I made these scrumptious cookies for my coconut-lovin' mom. The recipe came from Smitten Kitchen... here. I've just pared down the text and photos for a simpler look. If you need super, crazy, detailed instructions, go to her post. You'll find any/all answers there.

The coconut: Use "chipped" coconut that's unsweetened. I found mine in a middle eastern market in town. IF you can't find this, any unsweetened coconut flakes will work. The chips are meatier and larger and really make these cookies out-of-this-world!

The browned butter:  For this recipe, you'll need 1 cup of browned butter. Do this a day ahead or early in the morning, as it has to solidify again after it's browned before you mix up your cookie dough. Here's what ya do...

1. 2 sticks of UNsalted butter, into a pan
2. melt, and turn up the heat a bit to a low/medium setting and WATCH it carefully
3. it foams up, then turns clear, then browns
4. STIR as this is all happening, not constantly, but to keep butter moving so not only one area browns
5. when butter takes on a golden brown color and smells nutty, you're done!
6. pour all the butter and browned bits into a pyrex measuring cup
7. then add about 2 Tbsp. of water to bring volume back up to 1 cup
8. refrigerate for a while (a few hours) till it solidifies again
9. done!

Ingredients: 

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 2 Tbsp water
• 1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cup plus 3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp flaky sea salt (or 1/4 tsp table salt)
• 4 cups dried, unsweetened coconut chips

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. Into a mixer bowl scrap in all your browned butter with all the bits of browned solids with it
3. Add both sugars and cream them together till light and a little fluffy
4. Add vanilla and egg and mix, scraping sides as needed
5. Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt to combine
6. Add to a slow mixer in two batches (scrap sides and bottom of bowl to be sure all is combined)
7. Add coconut chips to slow speed mixer in two batches as well
8. Dough will be thick and very coconut-laden!
9. Drop tablespoon to 2 tablespoon lumps of dough onto cookie sheets
10. LEAVE LOTS OF ROOM AROUND THEM... they really spread out and get much bigger than you'd think!
11. Use fingers dampened with water to flatten dough out a bit before baking
12. Bake for about 13-14 min or until cookies are nice and deep gold/brown
13. Allow them to rest out of the oven ON cookie sheet for about 2 minutes
14. Move cookies to cooling racks till no longer warm
15. Stack em up, or eat em right away

Enjoy! They are crispy and nutty and toasty and chewy and perection. Give them a try! They really are super simple. Remember to get the butter going way ahead of time so it's refrigerated and back to its solid state before you start making the dough. Mmmmmm. 

That's all I can say. I'm staying out of the kitchen for a while for fear I'll lose my mind and eat them all in a frenzy.

Fresh Blueberry Cream Cheese Pie

This pie is a combination of two pies I love—one my mother makes that I love with the fresh blueberries and cream cheese, and the other has a cooked component with fresh berries added towards the end. This combination is killer!

We got our CSA box this past Wednesday and it was filled so full I knew I had to get cooking. I ended up blanching a pile of veggies and freezing them knowing Bill and I couldn't eat all of them by the time the next delivery was made. The blueberries in the box were the sweetest and most flavorful berries we'd ever tasted. WOW! I knew I wanted to make a pie that took advantage of how great these fresh berries were. This is the result. 

Try it! It is so super simple to do and requires very little stove/oven time!



Ingredients:

3/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup cold water

5 cups fresh blueberries, divided

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon lemon juice

½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1- 8oz Philly cream cheese or lite cream cheese (softened/room temp)

1 deep dish pastry shell (9 inches), baked


Step 1.  Bake off a deep dish pie shell. You can make your favorite dough recipe or do like I always do and buy a Pillsbury roll out shell, form it into a deep dish pie plate and bake according to package directions. Don't forget the pie weights to prevent it from bubbling up. And be sure to prick the bottom and sides with a fork!

Step 2.  Combine sugar, salt, cornstarch and water in a medium sauce pan. Cook over medium heat until there are no lumps and mixture is smooth. Use a whisk here.

Step 3.  Add half of the fresh blueberries to the sauce pan, bring to a boil.

Step 4.  Stir mixture and allow to boil just until mixture is nice and thick and bubbly... about 2 minutes.

Step 5.  Remove mixture from the heat and add butter, lemon juice, vanilla and remaining fresh berries and mix to coat fresh berries with cooked berries. Be sure butter is melted. Allow this mixture to cool.


Step 6.  While berries are cooling, spread cream cheese carefully over bottom of cooled pie crust. Don't be too aggressive here or you'll ruin your crust. it may even help to put cream cheese in the microwave for a few seconds to make it really soft and spreadable. (BE SURE TO REMOVE FROM FOIL PACKAGING BEFORE MICROWAVING!)

Step 7.  Once berry mixture is cooled a bit, pour into pie shell over cream cheese layer. AND... you're done! Put the pie into the fridge for a while and serve chilled. ENJOY!

Step 8.  EAT THIS GORGEOUS THING AND ENJOY! :) Our dinner guests loved this, as did we.

New Potatoes with Wilted Mizuna

Our C.S.A. share has been amazing this year. It's the first year we are getting veggies, fruits, cheese, and eggs from Willow Haven Farm. Every two weeks this amazing box of goodies shows up on our front porch. It's been a learning experience for me, as the box has such a crazy variety of veggies. There always seems to be one or two things I haven't encountered before. The challenge then becomes, what do I make with this? 

This time, Mizuna was a new one for me. It's a delicately spiky green with a peppery taste. 

According to Wikipedia—

Mizuna , also known as "water greens", shui cai, kyona, Japanese mustard, potherb mustard, Japanese greens, California peppergrass, or spider mustard is a cultivated variety of Brassica rapa nipposinica. The name is also used for Brassica juncea var. japonica.

The taste of mizuna has been described as a "piquant, mild peppery flavor...slightly spicy, but less so than arugula." It can be eaten raw in salads, but is also used in stir-fries, soups, etc.

Mizuna has been cultivated in Japan since ancient times, but most likely originated in China.

I thought by pairing this spicy green with some creamy new potatoes, each would benefit from the presence of the other. It's a simple recipe and it makes a great side dish. We had it with a nice London Broil, made on the grill. Let me know what you think and how you change this basic recipe!

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Ingredients:

5 or 6 medium new potatoes (or a bunch of little ones as seen here)

4 cups mizuna, washed with heavier stems removed

¼ cup chopped or slivered red onion

4 cloves of garlic (more or less to taste) crushed or finely minced

3 Tbsp. olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

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1.       Wash potatoes and remove any eyes, etc. with peeler. Cut into bite size pieces (about 1”)

2.       Boil potatoes till they are al dente, NOT cooked completely. A sharp knife can be inserted but potato pieces still feel firm. They will finish cooking when sautéing in pan with veggies. Drain potatoes and set aside.

3.  In large no-stick fry pan or wok, heat olive oil and sauté onion till translucent

4.  Add garlic and mizuna to pan to wilt leaves and cook garlic a bit, about a minute or so.

5.  Add drained potatoes to pan with veggies and turn up heat a bit to start to brown potatoes. Season with salt and a generous amount of fresh ground pepper.

ENJOY and let me know what you think. I think I really love this green. A funny side note: not knowing how this green tasted, I thought I'd add some to my lovely fruit smoothie in the morning as a way to get more fiber/greens in my day. Let me tell you... DO NOT DO THIS! It was horrible. All I tasted was peppery/spicy greens. I got about half of it down then had to dump the rest. Ugh. Horrible. Cooked and in salads, it's great!

The best blueberry sour cream pie ever!

YES, I said it... the BEST blueberry pie ever. This recipe was adapted from one called "Newport Shores Blueberry Sour Cream Pie" which I found somewhere a bunch of years ago. It didn't have enough topping on it and needed the innards adjusted for a deep dish pie plate.

This pie is a favorite of all who try it. I'd put this pie up against just about any blueberry pie you could come up with. It's got a background flavor of almond from the sour cream batter the blueberries are suspended in, and a crunchy pecan crumb topping. Mmmmm!

Don't be frightened by all the baking required, though since blueberries are a July crop, if you have no air conditioning, you may want think it through. The oven will be cranking for about 1.25 hours for different stages of this pie. That being said, it's very simple (and I make it even more simple by using a prepared pie crust which you can find in the dairy section of your grocery store (the kind you unroll).

Here's the scoop...

You'll need these ingredients:

1 1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. sugar (divided)
9 Tbsp. flour (divided)
1 egg, slightly beaten
3/4 tsp. almond extract

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

3 cups fresh blueberries

1 baked 9-inch pie crust (pre-baked in a DEEP DISH pie plate)

1/4 cup butter at room temperature

1/2 cup chopped pecans

2 Tbsp. sugar

Here's what you do...

Press refrigerator pie crust into a DEEP DISH pie plate and bake according to package directions. I always put my dried red kidney beans in the bottom as weights to prevent bubbling during baking.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Wash, sort, and dry the blueberries. 

Combine sour cream, 3/4 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, egg, almond extract, vanilla extract, and salt in small bowl. Whisk all together well.

Fold in blueberries. 

Spoon into pre-baked crust... 

then... (very important!!)... cover exposed crust with aluminum foil to prevent crust from becoming too dark.

Bake until filling is set in center, about 45 minutes.  

Mmmmm... looks good enough to eat, but don't! We're not quite done. Time for the topping...

To make topping, in medium-size bowl, combine remaining 6 tablespoons flour with butter. Mix with fingertips until small clumps form. Add pecans, and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar.

Remove the protective foil from outer edge of crust. Add topping evenly over surface of pie.

Bake for another 12 minutes or until nuts look toasted a bit. Allow pie to cool before serving.

You will love this recipe, I promise. Please feel free to let me know what you think!

As a huge thunderstorm approaches, we ready ourselves to enjoy this gorgeous thing.