Peaches and Blueberries
In July, the longest line at Nevada City’s Saturday Farmers’ Market is shoppers in search of ripe peaches. When my sister Kim was in town earlier this month, we arrived shortly after the market opened and within minutes I’d selected two pounds of the ripest peaches I could find. But after bumping into neighbors Tim and Terri, I learned there were even riper peaches at the other end of the market. Before long, I had a basketul of gorgeous peaches that were dripping juice and slipping out of their skins by the time we got home.
Next, I added a basket of blueberries, purchased a potted eggplant, and was tempted by a display of oyster mushrooms that I will return for and buy another Saturday this month. Before leaving, Kim and I stopped at a bakery stand and left with two scrumptious pain au chocolat to have with a café au lait on our patio once we got home. The taste instantly evoked thoughts of Paris and boulangeries filled with freshly baked flakey pastries and crusty artisan loaves of bread.
That evening, we joined neighbors for a potluck dinner and brought a peach/blueberry cobbler made from the fruit I’d purchased that morning. The recipe was inspired by “Edna Lewis’s Peach Cobbler Recipe” adapted by Kim Severson that had appeared recently on the NYTimes Cooking website—my go to site for recipes these days. Severson described the recipe as follows:
“This delicious cobbler, which features pie crust instead of a biscuit or cake topping, is designed to let the incandescent flavor of summer peaches shine, and it’s best made when they are in season. Edna Lewis, the cookbook author and chef from Virginia whose books are considered definitive in Southern culinary canon, often suggested a lattice top for it, with bits of raw dough tucked into its filling before baking. Those bits cook into tender dumplings while thickening the fruit juice. Serve the results warm with ice cream or whipped cream, or all by itself.”
The first four steps of Lewis’s recipe are about making the pie crust. [Reader, if you are terrified of making pie crust from scratch or are in a hurry, use two ready to use rolls of pie dough from a box of Pillsbury pie crust available at local grocery stores. It tastes like homemade and lets the peaches be the star. There won’t be a crumb or jot of the golden crust or peach filling left in the casserole dish when the evening is over.]
Another wonderful way to use summer peaches and blueberries is in muffins. Every weekend when I arrive at the Lodge, Kit’s rehab residence in nearby Grass Valley, I bring a basket of homemade, still warm-from-the-oven, cornmeal peach and blueberry muffins to share with the wonderful nurses, aids, and staff who show up 7-days a week to care for the residents. There are tons of muffin recipes available from cookbooks and online sources, but an easy one I love and the Lodge staff rave about is made from a box of Krusteaz Honey Cornbread & Muffin Mix.
Peach and Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients and Directions:
Preheat oven at 375 degrees
Combine the Krusteaz muffin mix with one egg, ½ cup milk, and 1/3 cup Canola oil.
Add a cup of blueberries and a cup of chopped peaches.
Bake 20-25 minutes in standard-sized muffin tins lined with parchment paper cups.
Makes 16 amazing golden muffins
When I can find a few more hours in my days this summer, I’ll make Edna Lewis’s cobbler crust from scratch. I’ll also try each of the recipes that I recently discovered in the July/August 2020 issue of Martha Steward Living that I purchased at a local vintage market. That summer issue features glorious recipes for cardamom-scented peach-apricot cobblers, a peach and blueberry tart with cream cheese filling, peach salad with melon and Lillet Rosé, and peach-guava popsicles.
What’s not to love about incandescent summer peaches baked into a warm, spicey cobbler; sliced in a salad that transports you to Provence; added to a cream-cheese tart as a glorious finish; or macerated and captured like sunshine on a popsicle stick? When my nephew Christopher arrives with my great nieces Simone and Sofia next month, they will be making fruit popsicles for sure.
Oh my, July! Glorious summer fruit and times with family cooking and baking together. That is what memories are made from.
