I can never tire of a rustic dessert, especially one made with fresh, perfectly ripe peaches. Fruits like these when at their peak always make the difference, turning a ho-hum dessert into a spectacular one. I'd like to think that peach desserts are an American specialty, particularly a Southern one. There is the traditional peach cobbler, peach crisp, and peach crumble. There are also the peach pie and tart. But when simply baked on a pan with the edges of the dough turned over, you have what the French call a galette and the Italians a crostata. An extra crispy crust sets the galette or crostata apart from pies and tarts.
This crispiness is achieved by baking at high temperature and can not only be attained by professional bakers, but by home bakers too. Preheat the oven with a pizza stone and after adequately heating for a half hour, bake the galette in a pan placed over the stone. This is the foolproof method for the crispiest crust, but what if it's sill soggy? The French secret to keeping the crust from getting soggy is a thin layer of ground nuts between the dough and fruit. The Italians use amaretti crumbs. The nuts or crumbs absorb the excess liquid from the fruit and create a thickened consistency. They almost go unnoticed in the finished dessert.
It's easy to get so caught up in the idea of eating seasonally that we forget that there are certain things that aren't necessarily seasonal, for example vegetables grown in hothouses or greenhouses like Belgian endive, cucumbers and mushrooms, also preserved produce--jams, pickles, chutney, frozen and canned foods. Which brings me to canned tomatoes, which are a great choice for recipes since fresh tomatoes are in season for a fairly short period of time.
When it's incredibly hot outside, like it has been this month,
standing by a hot stove is not something anyone wants to do. Grilling
outside is another option, but when it's too hot to even do that, what
do you do? Why not make a no-cook recipe, like a chilled soup? The
cooling qualities of a cold soup are perfect on days where you need a
refreshing respite from the sweltering heat. And there's no better way
to achieve that than with a cold soup.
Sometimes, Thursday’s roll around and all I really want to do is grab a friend and sneak out to a 10 a.m. movie. Eat popcorn for lunch and then come home and take a nap before the kids get home. This is merely a fantasy (aside from an occasional nap) and dinner on this particular day of the week can be easily coined, “use it up, Thursday”.