Peaches | bits and breadcrumbs

Peaches! We have them…the first of the season from south Georgia, and boy are they a welcome sight. It seems like forever since peaches were in season, and now at last they’ve arrived, even a bit early, like everything this year.

After the first week of eating them in a few juicy bites, or with some Greek yogurt and granola, I began to calm down once I realized that these were early peaches and we should have peaches for a while to come. And that’s when I started thinking about baking. Now, I don’t bake a lot…mainly because there are just two of us and, well, if I make it, we will eat it…rapidly and until no crumbs remain. But peaches do inspire me to start trying some new ideas.

My first thought was something cake-y. More so than a crisp or a cobbler, but maybe more versatile than a muffin. I love shortcakes…why not combine the idea of fruit and shortcake into one…besides the fact that I’ve never seen it done? And hence the result: a very short little peach cake! Continue reading →

Each year I see all these wonderful recipes for canned goodies—homemade pickles, relishes, chutney, jams, marmalades, conserves, preserves, jellies, sun-dried tomatoes—and I SO long to make my own and try them out, give them as gifts to friends, and have a bit of summer sunshine stored for my own winter pantry.

But there’s been a problem: contemplating the process has caused great fear and trepidation in my soul. Even though it’s one of the most common ways to preserve homegrown foods, and is quite a simple process handed down through generations of folks, I just have not been able to bring myself to attempt it. So why all the angst? In three words: sterilization, pasteurization and the worst thought of all, botulism. Doing anything connected with those words made me want to run in the opposite direction. Continue reading →