The Peaches of August

When one of my friends outside the South asks me how we can endure the heat and humidity of August, I reply that the reward is August peaches. You can get them earlier, but those varieties are not nearly as good, in my view, as the ones that arrive in August. 

When I was a kid, we lived on a gravel road in the country, and every year around my birthday, a man came through the neighborhood in a pickup truck laden with baskets of fresh, luscious peaches. There were two varieties. Georgia Belles were yellow-fleshed, red-skinned fruits that my grandmother preferred for canning. Grandpa usually bought a bushel of them. The others were Alberta, a white-fleshed freestone that could be as big as a softball. The flavor was perfectly peachy, sweet and aromatic with notes of cinnamon and vanilla. We would eat the Alberta peaches out of hand, sitting on the front porch, juice dripping from our chins, wasps buzzing down to feed from the little puddles of juice at our feet. Peaches that escaped being eaten this way were soon made into cobbler by Grandma. Here is a scaled-down version of a recipe that tastes like the one I remember.

Peach Cobbler

Makes one 8-inch square pan

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar, divided

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

pinch of salt

1/2 cup whole milk

2 cups slices of peeled, fresh peaches (3-4 fruits)

1-1/2 teaspoons lemon juice

Ground cinnamon

Place the butter in an 8-inch square baking pan and set on a rack in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Watch carefully and remove the baking pan when the butter has melted. Leave the oven on.

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and 1/2 cup of the sugar in a mixing bowl. Add the milk and stir to combine. Pour the batter into the melted butter in the baking pan. DO NOT STIR

Place the remaining sugar, the peaches and the lemon juice in a saucepan set over medium-low heat and bring just to a boil. Spoon the hot fruit mixture over the batter in the baking pan. DO NOT STIR. Sprinkle the surface of the cobbler with ground cinnamon to your liking.

Place the pan in the oven and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the top crust has formed and is golden brown in color. Remove from the oven and cool. The crust will not completely cover the top of the cobbler. (See photo.)

Serve the cobbler at room temperature, or refrigerate and serve cold. A dollop of vanilla ice cream goes very well with this dish.

You can double the recipe and use a 9- by 13-inch baking pan. Increase the baking time by 5 minutes.

The end result of this recipe depends entirely upon the quality of the peaches. Buy local ones, if possible. The exact variety does not matter. The ones I mentioned are "old-fashioned" now, and newer varieties like Garnet Beauty and White Rose have replaced them. Peaches at the produce market should be firm and fragrant. Leave them on the counter for 2 to 3 days, and they should ripen to perfection.

 

Try This Summertime Combination

Ah, summertime! Among the many pleasures of the summer months is the arrival of peaches, which are just now making their debut from South Carolina. Local peaches will arrive in late July.

One of my favorite ways to enjoy fresh peaches is to grill them and then serve them with vanilla ice cream and basil syrup. Yes, basil syrup. The flavors of sweet summer herbs like basil, lemon balm, lemon verbena, mint and lavender pair beautifully with summer stone fruits.

To flavor a syrup with any fresh herb, collect a packed cup of the leaves of your herb of choice. Combine one cup of water and one cup of sugar with a pinch of salt in a saucepan. Place over medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Boil for one minute. Remove from the heat and allow to sit one minute. Stir in the herb leaves. Allow the syrup and leaves to cool to room temperature, then puree in a blender. Strain the syrup through a fine sieve and store it covered in the refrigerator.

That's all there is to it. Serve your herb syrup with any fresh fruit or a combination.

Whatever Happened To Kumquats?

During holiday seasons past, kumquats were as much a feature of the fruit bowl as oranges and tangerines. These days, they seem to have disappeared from the market. That is a shame, because the small, oval fruits are delicious prepared in a variety of ways, and they are in season from November to March.

Several varieties of kumquats are produced in Florida and other areas favorable to citrus fruit production. The skin is sweet and fragrant, and you can eat the entire fruit. Although they vary in texture and sweetness, all varieties of kumquats can be put to use via the same techniques. Poaching them in sugar syrup to serve as a dessert topping is perhaps the simplest approach. You can vary the sweetness of the syrup as you like. Anything from one part sugar to two parts water (a light syrup) to equal parts sugar and water, should be fine. Wash the kumquats, slice or quarter them, and simmer them in the syrup for 10 minutes or until they are tender.

Longer simmering over low heat until almost all of the water evaporates will produce candied kumquats. Stored in the refrigerator, they will keep for weeks and can decorate all sorts of sweet goodies. Watch carefully to prevent burning, and take them off the heat as soon as they appear translucent. Remove the fruit from the pan and place it on wax paper to cool before storing.

Kumquats can be included in fruit salads, or sliced and used in a salad of mixed greens, vegetables, fruits and nuts.

Now if I could only find a basket or two...

More Ways to Save Summer

Jerry and I will have a table at the UT Gardens Farmer's Market on Wednesday, July 15. We will be there to answer gardening questions from 4:00 to 7:00 PM. There will be food, music, and of course multiple vendors of local produce and other farm products. The market is pet and kid friendly, so why not bring everyone and join us? Free parking near the entrance to UT Gardens.

Important Note: The UT Gardens Farmer's Market always has a special table where you can leave excess produce to be donated to Second Harvest. In our case, we have a bag of cucumbers. I have made all the pickles we will use until next season, and we still have plenty coming along. This is a great way to deal with all that summer squash or whatever abundance your garden has been blessed with. Some people even buy extra vegetables from the vendors, just to donate to this worthy effort.

One thing I always look for at the summer markets is fresh local fruit. Whether it is wild blackberries, peaches, or something else, the flavor and quality of locally grown, naturally ripened fruit is impossible to obtain in fruit shipped here from California. One of the best ways to take advantage of seasonal fruit is to use the simple, time-honored technique of making preserves. Of all the sweet treats you can make from fresh fruit, preserves are the simplest. They will also provide you with the greatest number of options when using the finished product.

You will need a kitchen scale for this recipe.

Universal Recipe for Fruit Preserves

1 pound fresh fruit
12 ounces sugar

Prepare the fruit as you would for eating it fresh. That is, peel, pit or stem fruits as needed and cut larger fruits, like peaches, into bite size pieces. To prevent darkening, use a commercial product such as Fruit Fresh(TM) according to the label directions. Place the prepared fruit and the sugar in a large, heavy bottomed saucepan. Stir the fruit and sugar together, bruising the fruit slightly and allowing some juice to be released. Don't get carried away with this. You want to retain the shape of the fruit as much as possible. Set the pan over medium heat and bring it to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Watch carefully and regulate the heat so the mixture does not scorch. As soon as the boiling point is reached, remove the pan from the heat, cover, and allow it to cool to room temperature. Leave it sitting overnight, and do not open the lid. The following day, you should have slightly translucent fruit floating in flavored syrup. You can store the preserves in the refrigerator for a month, or can them. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the fruit to half-pint canning jars. Ladle the syrup over the fruit, leaving 1/4 inch head space. (Store any additional syrup in the refrigerator. It is delicious on ice cream or to flavor whipped cream, etc.) Wipe the rim of the jar with a damp kitchen towel to ensure a good seal. Apply lids and bands and process the jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes, or 15 minutes if you live above 1000 feet elevation.

Preserves can be used as a dessert topping, or can be mixed with other ingredients depending upon your needs. For example, peach preserves can be thickened with cornstarch paste to use as pie filling. I have made cherry preserves into a killer barbecue sauce, The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Make a batch of preserves and enjoy summer flavor all winter long.