Whoops… and peaches!

Tags

cobbler, hurricane irene, peach cobbler, peaches

Movin' to the country/Gonna eat a lot of Peaches - Presidents of the United State of America

Well that plan went real well…

Blog in the middle of a hurricane! What a brilliant idea! That is until you loose power and internet and all connection to the outside world. Instead of blogging we had a Hurricane Party that essentially consisted of five adults processing peaches for 48 hours with a five year old running around giggling.

We got our power back within 24 hours (normally it takes several days) and, yes, I should have blogged then but life got in the way again. Irene just barely grazed us. The next morning was a gorgeous sunny day and my family quickly threw our stuff in the car and rushed up to Acadia. We had a wonderous vacation. Then I went back to work… Then I had admissions work to do for Smith… And then there was a bunch of shiny stuff, and oh dear, I forgot to blog! Naughty, naughty, me!

I cooked some amazing food during that Hurricane. Even though this material was meant to be posted a month ago I feel it is better late than never.

So today I wanted to share with you my favorite peach recipe from Irene. (We also made a kick-ass Ginger Peach Jam.) This Peach Cobbler recipe is one that my mother tested out all week and we happily gobbled up all the different batches. This cobbler doesn’t have a typically biscuit type topping. Instead it has a wonderful gooey, thick and sugar crunch top.

Mama Daughtry’s Notcha Usual Peach Cobbler!

Mama Daughtry's Notcha Usual Peach Cobbler!

• 4 cups peaches
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 6 T butter
• 1 cup flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 t baking power
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t nutmeg
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 t each almond and vanilla extract

1. Wash, peel, pit and slice peaches. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of sugar over peaches and set them aside at least half an hour to macerate in their juices.
2. Turn oven on to 350 degrees. Put butter in a 9 by 13 baking dish and place in oven for several minutes to melt.
3. Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add milk and extracts and blend until smooth.
4. Remove hot pan from oven and immediately pour in the batter evenly over the butter without stirring. Then pour peaches and their juices somewhat evenly over batter again without stirring. Sprinkle with more cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg and bake for about 50 minutes until top is browned.

 

Look at all that delicious, gooey, peachy goodness!

And because I was so excited about our peach harvest this year (we processed over 60 pounds!) I wanted to share with you some more photos:

Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Me!

The downside of organic peaches... (This looks very Alien like)

Apparently I'm not the only fan of my peach tree!

 

 

Back to Business

Tags

canning, hurricane irene, prep, vacation

Dear Growing Up Julia readers,

I’ve been MIA for quite some time now. The past few months I’ve been working at a fantastic new job. The job has been keeping me busy and sadly the blog was put on the back burner.

But now I’m on vacation. I had grand plans of escaping to go camping with my loved ones in Acadia. I imagined myself contentedly staring out at the Atlantic from the top of Sargent or Penobscot Mountain. Then this ruined my plans:

BOOM! Here comes Hurricane Irene!

My vacation plans are on hold while Nature’s fury comes roaring up the east coast. I’m certain I wouldn’t fare too well in a tent in this weather!

Instead I am at home. Time to batten down the hatches, buy loads of bottled water, board up the chicken coop, pull out the board games and emergency chocolate and watch the world go flying by the windows!

Before the storm hits my family has some serious Hurricane prep work. We’ve got to clean the yard and put everything away. I’ve got to find a way to protect my half finished earth bread oven (blog post to come about the oven).

But the most pressing and urgent work to be done before the storm is harvesting our garden. Late August is a bountiful time filled with sun-gold cherry tomatoes, peppers, big red tomatoes, zucchini and a plethora of peaches from my childhood peach tree. The Hurricane (even if it is just a tropical storm) will devestate our garden. So before everything hits we are harvesting as much as possible and trying to freeze, can and bake our way through the piles of fruit and veggies.

So I figured while I’m stuck at home I should post all of our Hurricane Prep/Harvest Bonanza recipes. So stay tuned for pictures, tales and recipes of Peach Jam, Peach Ice Cream, Zucchini Chocolate Cake, Grill Pizza, Tomato Sauce and more…