Easy-Peasy Backwards Peach Cobbler

Sometimes it's hard to remember what has been posted here in the past. I looked up Peach Cobbler, but didn't find this version. I'm going to share it with you because it's so easy and delicious. I don't know why I had never heard of this before.

On the net, it's widely known as Southern Living's Easy Peach Cobbler. But as I was opening the packages of frozen peaches, by golly, there it was again. Just a hair different in terms of quantities, but it was called Aunt Somebody's Peach Cobbler. I'm going to take a wild guess that it's a recipe that has been around for a long time.

Around the holidays, for some reason that I cannot remember, I felt compelled to buy a couple of bags of frozen peaches. I kept seeing them in the freezer, and decided the bleary days of March were the perfect time for sweet brightly-colored peaches. And I stumbled upon this recipe. Not only do I like easy recipes, but I love recipes that seem like they wouldn't work.

In this recipe, you melt the butter in the pan, add the flour mixture, and then put the fruit on top! Crazy, huh? It's so backwards. But it works! I'm definitely going to try this with frozen berries.

You can use fresh fruit, in fact, that's what the recipe calls for, but those of us in colder climates are digging in our freezers for last summer's fruit now. I had a little moment of doubt about the exact amount of peaches. The recipe calls for 4 cups of peaches. Hmm, it's a little bit difficult to measure frozen peaches by the cup. In the end, I used two 16-ounce bags of frozen peaches. I was glad I did. Once they're heated, they have half the volume.

I will warn you that it's very sweet. Southern sweet, you might say. If you are not a fan of overly sweet desserts, you should definitely cut back on the amount of sugar.

Easy Peach Cobbler
(from Southern Living)

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar (divided)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup milk
2 16-ounce bags frozen peaches or 4 cups fresh peaches
1 tablespoon lemon juice
cinnamon or nutmeg (optional)

Place butter in a 13x9 baking dish. Place in oven and preheat oven to 375. Keep an eye on it so the butter will melt but not burn. Meanwhile, dump (seriously!) the flour, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, and milk in a bowl and mix just enough to wet the dry ingredients. Don't over-stir.

Remove the baking pan from the oven, if you haven't already, and pour the flour mixture over the butter. Do NOT stir or mix with the butter. Let rest while you prepare the peaches.

Pour peaches in a pot with the remaining 1 cup sugar and the lemon juice. Bring to a boil. Spoon over top of the dough. Sprinkle with cinnamon, nutmeg, or both if you wish. Bake 40-45 minutes or until lightly brown.

Dump flour and milk together.

Pour flour mixture over melted butter but don't stir!

Bring peaches and sugar to a boil.

Look, it fizzes!

Bake 40-45 minutes.

The taste of summer in the winter!

Eggplant pate aka baba ganoush @LucyBurdette #recipe

LUCY BURDETTE: sometimes you need an appetizer that's a little different from chips and salsa, right? Or even on the healthy side? Baba ganoush is the answer! The combination of roasted garlic and eggplant is oh-so-yummy, your guests won't even realize they are eating something healthy!



Ingredients

One large eggplant
Four garlic cloves
1/2 teaspoon cumin
Olive oil
Two heaping tablespoons tahini
One lemon
1/4 cup chopped parsley
Pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt

Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise.  Place it cut side down on well oiled pan. Place the garlic cloves on a little piece of foil, drizzle with olive oil, and close the foil into a little packet. Roast the veggies in a 350 oven until they are soft, 30 to 45 minutes.

When the eggplant is cool enough to handle, scrape the insides into a bowl. Next squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their papery skins into the bowl and mash, along with the cumin, 1 teaspoon olive oil, the tahini, and the parsley. Squeeze half the lemon over the top, and grind some fresh pepper over that. Mix everything well together and taste for seasoning, adding the rest of the lemon and salt and pepper as needed.

To serve, drizzle half a teaspoon of sesame oil over the top of the dip and sprinkle with parsley. Serve with pita chips, or pita squares, or cut vegetables. 

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Chicken Pot Pie with Puff Pastry #recipe #leftovers @AbbottMysteries

By Victoria Abbott aka Mary Jane Maffini

Sometimes you want something tasty and fabulous, but you don’t have time to do everything from scratch. Sometimes you want to use up an unexpectedly large amount of leftover ingredients (don't ask!) There are solutions for both of those situations.  Recently we found ourselves with three cups of leftover chicken on a cold and wintry day.  We still had half a box of puff pastry left over from our Mushroom and Asparagus Tart with Puff Pastry recipe and so pulled together this cheerful and warming dish. My hubby said, and I quote, “Wow!” 

 

Like any kind of creamy filling, you could season this with whatever your favorite flavors are. These ingredients worked well for us. At the end, we had a large dish and enough leftover Chicken Pot Pie for a second lunch although the cunning plan had been to get rid of leftovers. Does this ever happen to you? The good news was that the pie reheated beautifully and the puff pastry was still puffy and not at all soggy. Victoria Maffini (the other half of Victoria Abbott)  dropped in to sample it and confirm the success.

Chicken Pot Pie With Puff Pastry

 All you need is: 

 

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed and rolled out

4 tbsp butter

4 tbsp flour

1 medium onion, chopped

S & P to taste

¾ cup chicken stock, homemade is best, but purchased is pretty good too.

¾ cup light cream or milk (we used 5 % cream)

2 ¾ cups of cubed, cooked chicken (this was the amount we had – a bit more or less would have been fine too)

Juice of a lemon

1 red pepper, sliced, seeded and cut into small squares

2 green onions, sliced

½ cup frozen peas, thawed

1 tbp olive oil. plus1 tbsp butter

1 tsp Worchestershire sauce

All you do is:

Thaw the pastry – remember to do it before (ahem). Thaw the peas too. You don't need to cook them i advance, but they will add a bit of extra liquid if they're frozen when you pop them in. You have been warned.

Preheat oven to 375.  

In a medium skillet heat the tablespoon butter and tablespoon oil.  Saute the red pepper and green onion for about ten minutes.  

Meanwhile, melt the 4 tbsp butter until foaming in a medium-sized saucepan.  

Add the flour and cook over medium heat until it foaming.  Cook for about two minutes, Reduce heat if you need to keep it from browning

Add the milk, stock, lemon, Worchestershire sauce and seasonings, heat until it comes to a boil.  Reduce heat and stir until thickened. 

 

Stir in the chicken, peppers, green onion and peas. Add a bit more cream or stock if it's too thick.  Allow to cool a bit.

Pour into a buttered baking dish.  We used a 10-inch square overproof serving dish.  Top with rolled out puff pastry. 

Cut slits for the steam to escape or it will become soggy.  We like the look of the slashes.  You could make whatever designs you like.

Bake at 375 until the filling bubbles and the crust is golden. 

Being puff pastry, it should puff up nicely.  We baked ours for thirty-five minutes on the lower rack and had to add five minutes.  Ovens vary. 

We were very happy with the results as mentioned above.

This meal started as a problem solver to get rid of leftovers, but we’ll be planning to make it regularly, even if we have to cook the chicken for it.

That shadowy entity known as Victoria Abbott is actually a collaboration between mystery writer Mary Jane Maffini and her artist daughter, Victoria, with inspiration from Peachy the Pug, who has this to say:  Hey! Why doesn't The Peach get a scarf?

They have had a lot of fun writing their book collector mysteries and think it's a pretty tasty series. The fourth book The Marsh Madness is available now

 and the fifth The Hammett Hex will be out in October. Of course, you could  PRE-ORDER HERE!

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Almond Shortbread

Adapted from Favorite Irish Teatime Recipes

I promised you another cookie recipe, so here it is. Well, it’s not exactly a cookie, it’s a shortbread. They’re pretty easy to make, and not too sweet. This one’s a little different because it has a sort of meringue frosting on top, plus sliced almonds, which gives a nice crunch.

A note: a lot of recipes call for “rubbing in the butter” by hand. I often cheat and use a food processor, because (a) it’s faster, and (b) the butter is distributed more evenly. If you’re a traditional baker, go ahead and get your hands into the mixture. The result tastes good either way.


Almond Shortbread
Ingredients:

5 oz./1 cup flour
1 heaping Tblsp ground rice (you could grind your own, 

   but I happened to have some rice flour on hand)
2 heaping Tblsp sugar
4 oz. (one-half stick) butter, at room temperature
4 egg yolks, beaten
1 egg white
4 oz./1 cup confectioner’s sugar
2 oz. sliced almonds

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F (yes, that's low). Grease a 7” round pan.

In a bowl, mix the flour, ground rice and sugar, then rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs (or use a food processor for the whole thing here).

Add the egg yolks and mix to form a stiff dough. Knead until smooth, then roll out on a lightly floured surface until it will fit into the pan. Press in until flat, then prick with a fork. 

Cover the dough with a piece of foil and bake for 25-30 minutes.

I had to include this--it's my antique sifter

Whisk the egg white until it forms soft peaks, the sift the confectioner’s sugar and fold it in.

Remove the pan from the oven, take off the foil, and spread the icing mixture over the top. Sprinkle with the almonds, then return to the oven and bake for another 20-25 minutes.

After the first baking

After the second baking

Cool the shortbread in the pan, then cut into wedges when it is cool.

Done!

A Turn for the Bad (County Cork Mystery #4) is a Barnes and Noble mass market bestseller for three weeks in a row! You can order it at Barnes and Noble and Amazon, or look for it in your local bookstores.

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Pasta e Fagioli #recipe @LucyBurdette #lowsodium

LUCY BURDETTE: It's winter, even in Key West, which means that we've gone native and want to curl up and nap like these guys. With maybe some hot soup for supper.

I've just about given up on soup because of my low sodium diet – most soups turn out to rely quite a bit on salt to make the flavor pop. But when I saw a recipe in Bon Appetit for a pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans) with a homemade broth that I thought I could tweak, I couldn't resist giving it a try.

I was worried about flavor though, so added two carrots and two sticks of celery to the mix. I also made the mistake of buying escarole instead of endive, but that worked out fine!


Ingredients for the stock

one and a half cups of dry white cannellini beans
2 quarts water
2 sticks celery with leaves
2 peeled carrots
2 bay leaves
1/2 head of garlic
1/2 tsp dried red pepper
handful of chopped parsley

  To cook the beans, you can either soak them covered in water overnight, or use the quick method, bringing them to a simmer for two minutes. Then cover the pot and let it sit for an hour. Next, drain and rinse the beans. Add all the above ingredients to the pot. Bring all this to the simmer and let it cook for an hour and a half.


Ingredients for the soup base

2-3 sticks of celery, diced
2-3 carrots, diced
1 onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, diced
3 tablespoons olive oil
14.5 ounce can of no-salt added diced tomatoes
3/4 cup white wine

 

Meanwhile in a second pot, sauté the chopped celery, carrots, onion, and two garlic cloves in 3 tablespoons of olive oil. When the vegetables are soft, add the tomatoes and simmer until most of the juice has evaporated. And 3/4 cup white wine and simmer again. 


When the big pot has finished simmering, drain the beans, discard the vegetables, and add the beans to the second pot, along with 4 cups of water or low sodium chicken stock. Simmer this all together, then add 6 oz of good pasta, broken into smallish pieces. Simmer until al dente, then add 1/2 head chopped escarole and simmer for several minutes until wilted.

 

Serve with freshly-grated Parmesan cheese.

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And don't forget (how could you?), KILLER TAKEOUT will be in bookstores of all kinds on April 5, but is available for pre-order today!

Penne with Tomato Vodka Cream Sauce ala Jordan from FOR CHEDDAR OR WORSE.

From Daryl aka Avery


I fear that many of my readers don't really "get" the man that Charlotte is in love with: Jordan. Because he has a secretive past (revealed in the later books), readers don't initially ADORE him from the start. They want Charlotte to wind up with another guy (also revealed in later books - no spoiler alerts in this post) except...

I need you all to understand that Jordan is one of my all-time favorite characters!!! Why? Because he is strong, loving, hardworking and protective of those he loves. He moved his sister to be closer to him. [There's a reason for that.] He has a darling dog. He is a fabulous cook. He likes to read. He likes long walks and cross-country skiing. And those eyes!! Does it sound like I'm putting his profile on match dot com? Yeah, he'd pretty much fit the bill for a super guy to date, except he has this secretive past. Darn it. Secrets just don't seem to make readers comfortable, do they?  (Heh-heh)

Well, for all of you just starting the series, please don't despair. He's a GOOD man. (Okay, that's a spoiler alert! Sue me.)  Charlotte knows he is. She is instinctive when it comes to people and crime. So she's making the right choice. When you read FOR CHEDDAR OR WORSE, you'll see how good he is.  Okay? Promise!

In the meantime, enjoy Jordan's penne recipe. In FOR CHEDDAR OR WORSE, a group of friends gather at Jordan's new restaurant, and they have an evening cooking lesson. There is some pretty silly (fun) chatter between them. The recipe they are cooking is this one. Tasty, zesty. Enjoy!


PENNE WITH TOMATO VODKA CREAM SAUCE

ála Jordan

(serves 6)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 teaspoon paprika

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 28-ounce can mini-diced tomatoes

3 tablespoons vodka (*I use Grey Goose)

1/3 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano

1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/3 cup heavy cream

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (10 grinds of peppermill)

12 ounces penne, raw (about 4 cups cooked)

Extra Parmesan for garnish

Extra parsley for garnish

Bring a large pot of water to boil.

Meanwhile, in a large saucepan over medium-high heat, sauté the garlic and paprika in the extra-virgin olive oil until the garlic sizzles, about 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes (including the juices) and the vodka. Bring to a boil.

Steam makes these kinds of photos blurry. Sorry.

Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover with a lid tilted slightly, or use a screen top so extra moisture escapes, and cook to reduce the sauce about 10-15 minutes.

Remove from heat. Stir in the grated Parmigiano, parsley, cream, salt, and pepper.  Simmer to integrate the cream, and reduce the sauce a bit more, about 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and keep warm.

Even blurrier - so much steam! Drat!

Meanwhile, make the pasta according to package directions. Rinse in a colander with warm water.

To serve, divide pasta among four to six bowls. Top with sauce and extra Parmigiano, plus a spring of parsley.

Serve warm.

[Note from Jordan:  This is my mom’s recipe. She wasn’t Italian, but when she was a girl, she fell in love with Italian food. As a teenager, she apprenticed in an authentic Italian restaurant. Later, she taught me everything she learned. At The White Horse, I want to share these flavors with my customers. I’ll still give them what they expected from Timothy O’Shea and his terrific pub menu, but I hope to open their eyes and hearts to new food experiences.]

Note from Daryl / Avery - who doesn't love a man who loves his mother!!

***

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Hint: there's a SURPRISE coming in April. Something brand new. Can you stand the SUSPENSE?  

Savor the mystery and say cheese!

Daryl Wood Gerber aka Avery Aames

Tasty ~ Zesty ~ Dangerous!

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GRILLING THE SUBJECT, the 5th Cookbook Nook Mystery, can be pre-ordered. Click here to order.

FOR CHEDDAR OR WORSE, 
the 7th Cheese Shop Mystery.

Click to order.