In
another diary this afternoon, nhwriter mentioned that she loved food diaries. Well,
so do I! And today being a particularly delicious day for food and cooking, I thought I'd open a virtual dining room for us this evening.
Let me tell you about a couple of things I did today, and then chime in with your own stories, recipes, and food loves.
Last Saturday I went to the farmer's market and came home with a half bushel of tomatoes, some beautiful tiny purple-striped eggplants, zucchini, and peaches peaches peaches. It's
prime peach season in central Alabama, and those beautiful little fuzzy creatures seduced me. I sniffed them and petted them and brought too many of them home with me.
This morning I decided that something had to be done with the plethora of peaches and tons of tomatoes before they all went bad on me.
First step: Boil a huge open pot of water. While the water is heating, fill another pot with ice water. When the first pot is boiling, slip the peaches one by one into the water using a slotted spoon; keep them there for 60 seconds. Lift them out and slide into the ice water for 2 minutes. Remove them and the skins slide right off.
Now slice them open and remove the pits. These were cling peaches (the freestones will come in next month), so they are not quite as easy to pit, but persevere. Slice them into manageable pieces and pack into quart-size freezer containers. Don't fill the containers all the way; leave a couple of inches at the top. Cover the peaches with unsweetened apple or white grape juice (dilute grape juice half-and-half with water). Snap the lids onto the containers, and freeze.
I put up four quarts of peaches and had enough left over to make this pie:
Fruit Custard Pie
9-inch unbaked pastry shell
2 cups fruit (peaches, apricots, plums, or berries)
1/4 cup sugar (more or less to taste)
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Preheat oven to 375°. Arrange the fruit in the unbaked pie shell and sprinkle with sugar to taste.
Mix together the eggs, milk, remaining sugar, and vanilla. Pour over fruit.
Bake at 375° for 45 minutes, or until knife inserted into center comes out clean.
Then I turned my attention to the tomatoes. There were far too many for fresh slicing and eating; some of them were giving me the "we're not quite overripe but will be in a day or so" signal. So I went outside and fired up the grill. Soaked some hickory chips. Quartered the tomatoes and placed them cut side up on a deep roasting pan. Chopped up an onion and sprinkled the bits over the tomatoes. Drizzled some olive oil over all. (This would be a good place to add herbs if you like: basil, thyme, oregano, even rosemary.)
I put the soaked chips on the hot coals, got a good smoke going, and then roasted the vegetables for about half an hour. Once they had cooled, I put them through a food mill and had just over a quart of the smokiest, most delicious tomato sauce I have ever tasted.
YUM. I will make a bunch more of this before the end of summer!
This evening we grilled grass-fed steaks and I roasted some baby red potatoes that also came from the market. I've had a piece of my fruit custard pie. I am deliciously satisfied but not overstuffed, and it's been a good cooking day.