Ginger Peach Muffins

Sometimes you know certain flavors go together well. Take peaches and ginger. They make a great match. There's ginger cookies served with fresh peaches, a little ginger in the whipped cream for peach shortcakes, and ginger and peach jam. It's a mix that works. But, every once a while, you come across a classic flavor combination done in a way that makes it even better than you knew it would be. The ginger and peach flavor mix in these muffins was a wow, like I'd never tasted it before. Freshly grated ginger is mixed into the batter along with chopped crystallized ginger, and fresh ginger is also added to a melted butter and honey syrup used to coat the peach slices that sit on top of each muffin. It could have been the one-two punch of fresh and crystallized ginger or maybe that peach season is winding down and I really wanted to savor these, but for simple muffins, these puppies caught me by surprise. They're from Good to the Grain which means they're also made with an interesting mix of flours in addition to the interesting flavor mix. Here, oat flour is combined with all-purpose and whole wheat flours for a very tender crumb and mild, nuttiness.

You start by grating lots of fresh ginger and letting that lovely fragrance start to fill your kitchen. A little of the grated ginger was added to a skillet along with butter and honey, and the rest was left in a mixing bowl. The butter and honey in the skillet was melted, and sliced peaches were added and coated with the syrup and then the pan was set aside. The dry ingredients were sifted together, and those included oat flour, all-purpose and whole wheat flours, sugar, dark brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, the wet ingredients were added to the remaining grated ginger including melted and cooled butter, whole milk, sour cream, an egg, and finely chopped crystallized ginger. Wet ingredients were mixed into the dry, and the batter was ready. In all the muffin recipes in this book, Kim Boyce recommends using only every other cup in a muffin pan. By leaving every other cup empty, the heat circulates well and the muffins rise better. I had learned of this trick from a different muffin recipe, and it really does work well. So, the batter was poured into every other muffin cup, each muffin was topped with two peach slices, and the syrup was spooned on top of the peaches before they went into the oven.

Of course they smelled amazing as they baked, and of course they looked pretty with the peach slices on top. There was no doubting that these were going to be good. I just had no idea how good. I thought I knew all about peaches with ginger, but it's nice to be taken by surprise like this.

Peach Mango Chutney + a Giveaway

There are a few standard types of cookbooks. There are the ones that offer recipes for soups, salads, mains, and desserts. Then, there are ones focused on particular topics like sweets or appetizers or grilling. I just read a review copy of Plum Gorgeous by Romney Steele, and this cookbook doesn't fit any of the standard moulds. Instead, this book is a stroll through an orchard from season to season with memories, quotes, and recipes for fruits at their peak of ripeness. The chapters move from citrus to berries followed by stone fruits and fall fruits. There are recipes for preserving fruits, turning them into lovely desserts, and using them in savory dishes too. So, among the citrus recipes, you'll find orange marmalade and preserved lemons and ideas for using them along with kumquats and toasted couscous with halloumi and a rangpur lime mascarpone tart. I was taken with the idea of making a sweet, savory chutney, and I had a mango from my CSA waiting to be used. There's an apricot mango chutney in the stone fruit chapter, but since it's peach season here, I went with what was available. Local peaches, onion, and chiles with my mango from south Texas and a few other spices became an aromatic, spicy condiment. There are suggestions for serving the chutney with cheese and bread or stirring it into a rice dish with chicken. I've used it two ways so far. First, I topped some little pieces of homemade sourdough with Pure Luck chevre and dollops of the chutney. Then, I stirred some into whole wheat couscous with toasted pine nuts, parsley, spinach, and pulled pieces of roasted chicken. Both were sweet, savory bliss.

Making the chutney was actually easier than I expected even though it does simmer for about an hour and then sit overnight. A pound of peaches was pitted and chopped but not peeled, and the mango was peeled, pitted, and diced. The recipe also calls for dried apricots, and even though I was using fresh peaches instead of fresh apricots, I added a few chopped, dried apricots for the texture. Onion, garlic, a few chopped hot chiles, lime zest, grated ginger, a cinnamon stick, coriander seed, mustard seed, cloves, black pepper, raw sugar, and champagne vinegar were also included. Everything was combined in a stock pot and cooked until the liquid evaporated and the flavors came together. In the recipe you're instructed to leave the chutney covered in the stock pot overnight. I leave almost nothing out in my kitchen since I fear the house is too warm in the summer. So, I refrigerated the chutney overnight. The next day, it was cooked again to deepen the flavors, and I added a little salt and more black pepper. The finished chutney can be kept in the refrigerator for several months, but I don't think it will last that long.

This book is both a guide to each season's fruits and a collection of fond memories centered on food. It's a great resource for using what's available now at the markets, or in your own orchard if you're lucky enough to have one, and for daydreaming about next season. I've already tried the fig relish recipe as well, and I'll be mentioning that soon.

Now, regarding that giveaway, Back to the Roots has offered to send a grow-it-at-home mushroom garden to one lucky commenter. I recently received a mushroom garden of my own, and it's an amazing way to easily grow food on your kitchen counter. The garden is contained in a small box with recycled coffee grounds for soil inside it. You just mist the open sides of the box each day, and oyster mushrooms begin to grow after about a week. Read more about the mushroom gardens here, and you can receive a 10% discount on purchases with the code mushrooms4me10. All you have to do to win a garden is leave a comment on this post before Monday August 8, 2011 at noon CST. Include your email address with the comment so I can contact you. The winner must provide a US mailing address. Good luck!

UPDATE: The winner of the mushroom garden is Lola Lobato.

Grilled Peach Sundaes with Balsamic Fudge

Despite the fact that everything is supposed to be bigger in Texas, Texas-grown peaches are kind of small. I would argue, however, that their flavor is very big. Not many other fruits compare to a perfectly ripe peach. I mentioned the other day that I’d been reading Farmers' Market Desserts, and most of the recipes in that book include suggestions for alternate fruits. There’s a dessert called grilled fig sundaes with balsamic fudge, and I took note of the suggestion to use peaches or plums instead when in season as I had just received some peaches from my CSA. Whichever type of fruit is used, each piece is cut in half and skewered onto a rosemary sprig and grilled. The fruit skewers only remain on the grill long enough to soften and brown in spots and take on some smokiness. And, the fruit is only one part of this dessert. There’s also ice cream which is a natural with warm fruit, and then there’s the sauce. This is no old-fashioned, ice cream parlor kind of sauce. It’s a tangy, sweet reduction of red wine, balsamic vinegar, and sugar, and it makes this a sundae with grown-up flavor.

I’m sure both figs and plums would work very well for grilling. The peaches I used were nicely ripe which means they were a little tender and had to be pierced and skewered carefully. The pieces of fruit didn’t stay in place very well on the rosemary sprigs. They tended to flip around the stem and would have been difficult to turn on the grill. To fix that issue, I also pushed a wooden skewer through the fruit behind each rosemary sprig. With two skewers in place, the fruit stayed put and was easy to turn. To start, you should soak your skewers in water so they won’t burn on the grill even though any rosemary leaves left on the ends will catch the flame regardless. Meanwhile, you can begin the sauce. Good balsamic vinegar, red wine, and sugar, and the amount of sugar depends on whether you’re using a dry wine or a sweet, dessert wine, were stirred together in a saucepan. Over a bare simmer, that mixture was left to reduce by half which took about 15 minutes. It thickened as it cooled. Then, the fruit was brushed with olive oil, seasoned, and grilled for a few minutes per side, and the timing will depend on how hot your grill is. The goal is to just allow the fruit to soften and begin to brown. I served the grilled fruit and sauce with vanilla gelato, and I always follow the recipe from Demolition Desserts. It includes only two eggs and is made with more milk than cream making it slightly lighter than other vanilla ice cream recipes I sometimes use.

Savory flavors from the grill smoke and rosemary challenged the sweetness of the peaches and gelato in a delicious way. Likewise, the sauce was a mix of sweet and tart, rather than just sweet, which nudged the taste of the gelato in the direction of cheesecake. Plain, ripe, summer peaches are a pleasure, but if you’d like to dress up a few of them for dessert, I highly recommend this sundae.

Blackberry and Peach Crostata

When I saw the mixed berry crostata on LAtimes.com the other day, I started getting ideas. I had just bought some blackberries and peaches at the farmers’ market, and those two things are in season at the same time for good reason. I couldn’t wait to put them together in a simple, rustic kind of tart. The crostata dough from the LA Times is adapted from one by Nancy Silverton of Mozza. It’s a fairly straightforward pastry, but it includes a tablespoon of vanilla extract. I was sold. I’ve added nuts or lemon zest to dough before, but I had never thought of adding vanilla to pastry. With fresh, ripe, juicy peaches and just picked blackberries, a nice crust to contain them is all you really need.

I did go to the trouble of peeling the peaches this time although I often leave skins intact. It’s a simple procedure of bringing a pot of water to a boil, placing the peaches in the boiling water for about 45 seconds, and then transferring the peaches to ice water. Then, the skins slip right off when pulled with a paring knife. The peeled and sliced peaches and washed and dried blackberries were mixed with a little sugar and some cornstarch, and the filling was ready. The crostata dough was made in a food processor with all-purpose flour, cake flour, sugar, and salt, and chopped, cold butter was pulsed into that mixture. It was actually pulsed to a finer state than I usually mix a pastry dough. It was suggested to process until it resembled moist cornmeal. Ice water and vanilla extract were added, and then the dough was wrapped in plastic and chilled for a bit. For rolling out the dough, it was recommended that it be left kind of thick which is a good idea when juicy, fresh fruit is involved. The edges were rolled in over the fruit, and I brushed on an egg wash and sprinkled coarse sugar on the dough. The crostata baked for about 40 to 45 minutes until the fruit juices were bubbly and the crust was golden.

Sure, some ice cream or whipped cream wouldn’t be out of place here at all, but I was so excited about my first use of blackberries and peaches this season that I enjoyed the crostata with no added embellishment. This wasn’t a flaky, layered kind of pastry crust, but it was golden and crisp on top and tender in the center. With the flavor of vanilla throughout, it was a fine vehicle for the mixed fruit and thickened juices. If you have some ripe berries or other seasonal fruit on hand, consider using it in a crostata with this pastry dough, or try adding vanilla to your usual dough recipe for lovely added flavor.

Mascarpone Ice Cream with Peaches

Sometimes you just know. You see a recipe and you don’t even have to think about it or wonder how it will taste or worry about the technique because you know it will be great. You can already imagine the flavor, and it’s very, very good. That was what happened when I saw this dessert in July’s Food and Wine. Yes, ice cream made with mascarpone and served with peaches floating in a white wine-honey syrup scented with rosemary required no thinking. This was also a good choice for dessert because local peaches are still available, and rosemary is one of the few items in my yard that hasn’t succumbed to the searing, persistent heat this summer. The garlic chives are limply hanging on, the lemongrass is ok but requires a lot of water, and there are still a few green leaves on the sage. The basil isn’t entirely happy, but it’s surviving in containers which are watered daily. Everything else is long dead, but the rosemary doesn’t mind this weather at all, and I was happy to find another use for it.

The ice cream was made with a pretty standard custard including four egg yolks and whole milk. After the custard was cooked and poured into a bowl to cool, mascarpone was whisked into it, and then it was churned in an ice cream maker. For the syrup, white wine, honey, water, and sugar were combined in a saucepan and boiled until reduced by half. Rosemary was added and allowed to steep, and I veered from the recipe at this point. Rather than pouring the syrup over peaches and baking them, I simply sliced the peaches and let them sit in the warm syrup while it steeped with the rosemary. I wanted to keep the peaches a little firmer and closer to their fresh state. They were so fragrant and juicy, I didn’t feel the need to bake them to intensify the flavor.

A big scoop of the ice cream was topped with peach slices and a few spoons of syrup. The interesting thing about the ice cream is that there is no vanilla. The flavor comes entirely from the mascarpone. It was a nice change from the familiar taste of vanilla, and it was as good as expected with the peaches and syrup.

Baked Vanilla Rice Peaches

I should probably begin by apologizing in advance for what will surely be several posts in a row from the same book. I just read another Donna Hay book, Off the Shelf: Cooking from the Pantry, and as usual I was intrigued by every dish presented. The photos grabbed my attention immediately, and the recipes are so straightforward there’s no reason not to jump right in and get cooking. In this book, Hay suggests you consider your pantry staples as the “bones” of your cooking, and the recipes focus on those basic ingredients used in all sorts of ways. Each chapter is devoted to a type of staple such as pasta, rice, grains, and pastes. At the end of each chapter, there is a section called short order which presents very quick and simple dishes or just a sauce or crust or some element with multiple uses. After reading the book, I had a seriously difficult time deciding what to try first. There are about a hundred post-it notes sticking out of it, and just about everything I plan to make in the next week will be from this book.

One of the quick and simple short order items from the rice chapter is baked vanilla rice peaches. It occurred to me that I never make rice pudding, and Texas peaches are in season right now, so it was the right time to put the two together. This may be the easiest form of rice pudding ever prepared. For four large peaches or six small ones, you will need one half cup of cooked rice. I used jasmine rice. To the rice, add one quarter cup of cream, a tablespoon of sugar, and a teaspoon of vanilla. Cut the peaches in half and remove the pits, and spoon some rice mixture into each piece. Place in a baking pan, sprinkle tops with demerara sugar, cover with foil, and bake at 350 F for 20 minutes. That’s the entire recipe. When you remove the pan from the oven and lift the foil, you will be taken aback by the vanilla-peach loveliness emanating from within. Fresh peaches have a pretty fantastic aroma by themselves, but combined with vanilla, it's taken to another level.

The demerara sugar melted into a glossy syrup in the pan, and I spooned it back over the peaches. Also, I had some local, organic blueberries which I thought might look nice on the plate, and I dusted the tops of the peaches with a tiny bit of cinnamon. This was simplicity and comfort-food and fruit and dessert and possibly breakfast all in one very simple dish. When something is this easy and this good, it’s always a little surprising. But, the best part is realizing that I can whip this up anytime with very little effort.

Lonestar Blueberry Tart

The 4th of July inspired a bit of festive, all-American cooking. I created a cocktail, tried a new mac and cheese recipe (that failed in my opinion), grilled chicken sausages, and baked a blueberry tart. I’m skipping right past that mac and cheese because if it’s not spectacular, I don’t need to remember it. The blueberry tart, however, deserves some attention.

The July issue of Bon Appetit included a blueberry pie with cornmeal crust which caught my eye. I made use of the crust recipe with a couple of changes. I’m not a fan of vegetable shortening non-hydrogenated or otherwise, so I used all butter. And, I thought 1/4 cup of medium ground cornmeal wasn’t enough to really affect the flavor and texture. I increased it to 1/2 cup and reduced the amount of flour accordingly. The crust was delicious with just enough cornmeal taste and a slight added crunch.

For the filling, I used two pints of fresh, Texas blueberries, some zest and juice of one lemon, about 1/4 cup of cornstarch, and four tablespoons or so of local wildflower honey. Stimulated as I was by the American-ness of the weekend, I placed shooting star pastry cut-outs on top. They were brushed with an egg wash and sprinkled with turbinado sugar. I couldn’t help taking the local, Texas theme one step farther. For serving, Texas peaches were cut into slices to gild the whipped, heavy cream, and all together it was delicious. Summer in Texas isn’t bad.