French farmlands

French Cow (vache)Very cute, huh? Maybe that's why the cheese is so yummy in France.
Back home and adjusting to the time change and lack of French food and wine. Sadly.
But things are looking pretty good on the farm. Just picked fresh blueberries and the local peaches have been amazing. Thought I would share a couple of recipes from my summer kitchen. With all of this luscious fruit its hard to resist a cobbler or tart. I think one of the best, and certainly easiest, cobbler recipes is the cup of-cup of - cup of recipe. That is a cup of flour, cup of milk and cup of sugar. Here are the details:
4 or 5 ripe peaches, or a couple of cups of fresh blueberries, or a combination of the two
1 cup of sugar ( I use a little less)
half stick of butter
2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup of milk
1 cup of flour, all-purpose
Prepare your fruit by slicing, if necessary, and combining with a few spoons of sugar. Toss to coat the fruit and set aside for at least 10 minutes to extract juices.
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place butter in bottom of glass cobbler dish and melt in the oven while oven is preheating.
Mix together sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Slowly add milk, whisking until blended. Pour batter into cobbler dish atop the melted butter, add fruit on top of the batter and bake until golden brown, 45min. - 1 hour. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.
Another great recipe is for a rustic tart, as follows:
Pastry dough for one pie crust, either make your own or purchase in the biscuit area of grocery store. (guess what I do??)
3 cups of fresh fruit (single or a mixture)
3 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of cornstarch
Topping: 3 tablespoons brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
On lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry to about the size of a large dinner plate...does not need to be perfect. Transfer pastry on to a baking sheet
Combine fruit, butter, and cornstarch in a bowl and stir well. Pile the fruit into the center of the pastry, leaving a couple of inches of pastry around the edges. Discard any remaining juice. Fold the edges of the pastry toward the center, leaving the middle of the tart open, with some of the fruit visible. Combine brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle mixture over the top of the tart.
Bake for about 25 min. until pastry starts to brown and the fruit bubbles. Remove from oven and cool a bit before serving with ice cream or whipped cream.
Bon Appetit!