Layered Peaches and Cream Pie

Continuing my multi-post obsession with peaches, this week I made a layered dessert based on inspiration by my fourth grade teacher’s Fresh Peach Pie and the old favorite Four-Layer Dessert.

I found my teacher’s recipe while browsing an old church cookbook. I was intrigued by her technique: instead of adding flour, sugar, and spices to the fruit and baking it in the pie crust, she cooked the liquid filling first, added the peaches, placed them in a pre-baked pie crust, and topped it with whipped cream. With this in mind, I made a version of Four Layer Dessert using a cookie crust and substituting a layer of fresh peach filling for the pudding layer. The result was a cool, summery treat reminiscent of peach pie but without a pastry crust . My hubby is not a fan of cooked peaches. This dessert, with juicy bites of peaches, tangy cream cheese, fluffy cream, and a not-too-sweet crumb crust, made him go back for seconds.

Layered Peaches and Cream Pie
Inspired by Mrs. Shimp
Serves 4-6

Crust
12 Keebler Sandies or other shortbread cookies
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons salted butter, melted
2-4 tablespoons peach preserves, melted and reserved until crust is cooled

Filling
3 peaches or nectarines, diced or small slices
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1-1/2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream Cheese Layer
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup Cool Whip

Topping
Cool Whip or real whipped cream and a light sprinkle of cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F. Place cookies into bowl of food processor and process until crumbs form. Place in bowl and mix with brown sugar, cinnamon, and salted butter; press mixture into 7-inch X 11-inch baking pan or 9 inch pie plate. Bake 8 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack. When crust has completely cooled, brush melted peach preserves onto crust.

Combine peaches, sugar, and lemon juice in bowl and let macerate for one hour. Meanwhile place cream cheese and powdered sugar in bowl of electric mixer and mix until smooth; add extracts and mix until combined. Add Cool Whip and mix on low speed till incorporated. Spread mixture over crust and refrigerate.

When peaches have finished macerating, drain, reserving juice. Add water to juice if needed to measure 1/2 cup of liquid. Place peach juice with flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in small saucepan over low heat and whisk until smooth and bubbly. Add butter and vanilla, stir; remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes. Add peaches, stirring to combine, and let cool to room temperature. Spread over cream cheese layer in pan. Top with more Cool Whip or freshly whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Refrigerate until serving.

Linking to These Chicks Cooked Link Party

AND

Miz Helen’s Full Plate Thursday

Peach Crumb Bars

Peach-based recipes are so appropriate for this blog, and this one is a keeper. I’ve had it in my “Make This!” file for some time, and the time was right. Brown Eyed Baker adapted this recipe from Smitten Kitchen and Allrecipes.com. The only thing I added was vanilla, and I love to enhance peaches with vanilla.

I only had a small taste, since I was giving them away, but it was enough to tell me that these bars are rich and delicious with buttery crumbs above and below the jam-like peach filling, and I will make them again. I think cherry filling will be my next version!

Peach Crumb Bars
from the blog of Brown Eyed Baker
Makes 24 bars

3 cups flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold
1 egg, lightly beaten

5 cups (about 7 peaches) peeled and diced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Prepare 9×13-inch baking pan with baking spray or shortening.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter with pastry blender; add egg and continue cutting until dough is crumbly. Pat half of dough into prepared pan. Place pan and remainder of dough in refrigerator while preparing filling.

Place peaches in large bowl and sprinkle with lemon juice; add vanilla and mix gently. In separate bowl whisk together flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Pour over the peaches and mix gently.

Spread peach mixture evenly over crust. Crumble remaining dough over peach layer.

Bake 45 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. Cool completely before cutting into squares.

I linked up to Roz’s Fresh Food Friday.

AND

A Well Seasoned Life’s Sweet Indulgences Sunday

Rosy Peach Ice Cream

With 17 homegrown peaches ready to use from my dwarf peach tree and relief needed from Oklahoma summer heat, peach ice cream was in order. The tree is a Belle of Georgia purchased at Home Depot last year.

Here it is in a side-by-side shot to show the size difference of the tree: after I planted it last year is on the right and this year is on the left. It was difficult to get an accurate comparison photo, with cucumber vines all over the trunk, but the growth of that little tree is amazing.

When the peaches reached that gorgeous rosy peach color but still weren’t soft, I picked them (fear of birds!) and put them into a paper sack to finish ripening. I left them in the sack a day or two too long, because when I peeled them they were very soft, and the insides were almost red, with crimson juice rolling down my wrists and onto the counter as I peeled them. This juice made for a beautifully tinted ice cream.

With Greek yogurt in addition to milk and cream, the flavor reminded me of my favorite frozen yogurt from Berri Licious, a local organic live culture frozen yogurt parlor.

Rosy Peach Ice Cream

1-1/2 lbs ripe peaches, peeled, pitted and coarsely chopped
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 cup half and half
1/2 cup milk
tiny pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine peaches and water in medium saucepan. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until peaches are soft and cooked through, about 10 minutes. Remove pan from heat; mix in sugar and set aside to cool to room temperature.

Add peach mixture to food processor with remaining ingredients and process briefly. Chill in refrigerator, then transfer to ice cream maker and freeze.

Ice cream was “posed” in a depression era amethyst Newport Hairpin cream soup bowl by Hazel Atlas, circa 1930s.

I linked up to Roz’s Fresh Food Friday.

Fresh Peach Summer Salad With Sauteed Vegetables

There is a deep sense of satisfaction that comes from eating produce from one’s own garden that fulfills like nothing else. In spite of the excessive heat and convection oven-like environment, which discourages bees, my organic garden is still yielding herbs and cucumbers, a few peppers, peaches (I picked 17 from my 2-year old tree!), and one squash; and several cantaloupes and a couple of golf ball-sized watermelons are lurking under masses of vines. I also pulled about 25 onions last month. I long for tomatoes, but at this point I will have to wait for cooler temperatures for the blossoms to set. Each treasure I find is welcomed with a feeling of wonder and thankfulness!

Here is a salad that I composed recently using ingredients freshly picked from my garden. The lettuce, tomatoes, olives, cheese, and dressing were store-bought. What took this salad over the top in flavor was the addition of a fresh peach and sauteed vegetables. The combination of ingredients still has me salivating just thinking about it – the sweet and juicy bites of peach, the tang of the green olives and Italian dressing, the light crunch of yellow squash, the delicious heat of the peppers, and the cool and mellow tang of Manchego – it was the best salad ever!

Fresh Peach Summer Salad With Sauteed Vegetables
Serves 1 generously

Organic herb and spring lettuce mix – 2 generous handfuls
1/2 cup chopped fresh cucumber
1 chopped fresh peach
4 green olives
6 red cherry tomatoes
1 small onion
1 straight-neck yellow squash
2 small hot red peppers
1/4 cup cubed Manchego cheese
Ken’s Light Northern Italian dressing to taste

Place first 5 ingredients in large bowl. Saute onion, squash, and peppers in about 2 teaspoons of olive oil; cool the mixture about 5 minutes, then add it to salad. Top with cheese and dressing, and toss to combine.

The salad honestly does not need much dressing – the vegetables speak magnificently for themselves! To make this memorable meal even more special, I served this to myself in an old glass bowl in which my Mom used to serve her famous Jello salads.

Yard Crashers Update

Here are a few photos for an updated look at our back yard, now that our pool is a whopping two summers old.

We could not be more pleased with our blue gem, especially during this brutal summer of 100-plus temperatures and little or no rain. We added a pebble border on one side, because grass kept getting into the pool when my husband weed-eated, and we changed the original “Creepy-Crawly” pool cleaner for The Pool Cleaner.

The pergola has provided much-needed shade and is becoming a popular bird sanctuary. The wisteria I planted last year still hasn’t bloomed, but it is growing bushy and beautiful.

The firepit has not been used a lot, but when our grandkids are here, they love to roast marshmallows for s’mores.

Buddy inspects our crape myrtles, most of which survived the winter; we hope their red and white blooms will eventually fill this mulched area.

Although grass between the flagstones is a great natural look, it is a pain for my husband to weed-eat, and it looks puny during the summer heat, so he is contemplating digging it all up and grouting between the pieces.

We have a great view from our deck and feel lucky to have a bit of privacy, as we are separated from the back neighbors by a right-of-way.

Our patio garden is thriving in spite of the heat.

A flagstone path leads to my vegetable/flower garden on the south side of the house.

Here is the “before” version of my garden.

And here it is today.

I widened and lengthened the garden and have been granted permission by the Surveyor of the Kingdom (hubby) to use all the space I want on this side of the house.

Sadly, even though my garden looks beautiful, it produces lots of vines and little or no vegetables in this oven-like atmosphere.

However, my two year-old peach tree has a dozen or so peaches, so my eternal gardener’s optimism remains intact.

The Toffee Bar Search Is Over!

The search is over for the elusive toffee bars of my husband’s youth. After trying several excellent recipes and having him say, “These are good but not THE ones”, I finally came across his Mom’s recipe in a cookbook published by our high school band in the 1960s.

His remembrance of the recipe was that it was topped with chocolate, which is not included in the original recipe. When I asked him if the chocolate topping was a variation, he said it was his contribution to the recipe – lol!

His Mom’s recipe is titled “Pecan Crisps” and no chocolate is necessary for these softly crunchy, praline-ish bars. The toffee-like consistency is achieved by adding no leavening and spreading the batter into a large pan. And even though there is a teaspoon of cinnamon, the bars do not taste spicy.

I am so excited to find this recipe and spent the morning thumbing through this and other old cookbooks from my hometown. With all my love of new cookbooks and bookmarking scores of recipes on the internet, my favorites are still from my old, shabby, full-of-memories community cookbooks and those hand-written recipes lovingly shared on recipe cards, notebook paper, or any scrap of paper the writer found convenient.

Pecan Crisps
From my Mother-in-Law

1 cup soft butter
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg, separated
2 cups sifted flour
½ teaspoon salt (I left this out because I used salted butter)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup finely chopped pecans

Cream butter and sugar until light. Beat in vanilla and egg yolk. Add sifted dry ingredients and 1/2 cup of the pecans. Mix well. Press into greased 15 X 10 X 1 pan and brush top with slightly beaten egg white. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup pecans. Bake in moderate oven (350) about 25 minutes. While warm, cut into 50 bars and remove at once to rack to cool. (I cut mine into larger bars.)

Dulce de Leche Carrot Cake

My husband loves carrot cake, so for his birthday I made Dulce de Leche Carrot Cake with Dulce de Leche Cream Cheese Frosting from Bakespace.com, and it was a hit! I did make changes, both in the cake and in the buttercream, and those changes are reflected in the recipe below.

Dulce de Leche is a wonderful addition to moist carrot cake, lending its creamy, caramelly sweetness and reducing the sugar usually found in carrot cake recipes. Adding it to the traditional cream cheese frosting took it to another level.

Dulce De Leche Carrot Cake
Adapted from the original recipe at Bakespace.com

1 (14 ounce) can Dulce de leche, 1/4 cup removed
1 cup oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 cups bread flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 cups grated carrots, packed firmly
zest of one orange, finely minced

Dulce de Leche Cream Cheese Buttercream and Filling

1/2 cup salted butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup Dulce de Leche
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup pecans, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare two 8-inch cake pans with cooking spray and place circle of parchment paper in bottom of each.

In large bowl using hand whisk, blend dulce de leche, oil, applesauce, sugar, and eggs. Stir in vanilla extract and lemon juice. In smaller bowl, whisk flours, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. Fold flour mixture into wet ingredients and add carrots and zest, stirring well. Spoon into prepared pans.

Bake until cake springs back when gently pressed, about 25-30 minutes. Cool about 30 minutes before removing from pans to cool on wire rack. Make sure cake is room temperature or chilled before icing.

For buttercream, cream together softened butter, cream cheese, and dulce de leche until smooth and fluffy; add 1 cup powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Add cream and vanilla and mix to incorporate. Add remainder of powdered sugar gradually and beat on medium speed until smooth. Fill and frost cake layers as desired. Sprinkle with ground nuts and touch of cinnamon. Unfrosted cake freezes well.

Guinness Chocolate Birthday Cheesecake

My birthday was extra special this year because our kids and grandkids traveled from Texas to spend a few days with us. My daughter arrived bearing a Guinness Chocolate Cheesecake by Closet Cooking, and it was the best cheesecake EVER! It is hard to describe what Guinness does for chocolate, but it is a bit like the enhancement coffee provides for chocolate – it is marked by a depth of flavor not achieved by mere chocolate. The creaminess factor, combined with the richness of the chocolate, made me smack my lips.

I asked my daughter if she changed anything about the recipe, and she said that she ran out of dark chocolate and had to supplement with milk chocolate, and she used butter and chocolate graham crackers instead of grahams with cocoa. These changes are reflected in the recipe below.

Guinness Chocolate Cheesecake
adapted from the blog of Closet Cooking
8 servings

1 cup chocolate graham cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons heavy cream
8 oz dark chocolate, chopped
4 oz milk chocolate, chopped
3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup Guinness

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix graham cracker crumbs and butter and press into bottom of 9-inch spring-form pan. Melt chocolates in cream in a double boiler; set aside. Beat cream cheese until smooth, then mix in sugar, chocolate, sour cream, eggs, vanilla, and Guinness. Pour mixture into spring-form pans. Bake for 60 minutes. Turn off heat; leave cheesecake in oven with door slightly ajar for 60 minutes. Let cool completely, and chill in refrigerator overnight.

My hubby also provided a beautiful and delicious chocolate cake with chocolate and frosting, complete with a hot pink Happy Birthday. And yes, I had generous portions of both birthday cake and cheesecake. In my world there is no such thing as too much chocolate.

Salsa Pasta

I recently harvested the first Sungold tomatoes and sweet onions from my garden and combined them with Archer Farms Bean, Corn, and Roasted Red Pepper Salsa and fresh spinach for this simple and satisfying pasta dish.

Salsa Pasta
Cooked pasta of your choice
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion or shallot, chopped
1 generous handful fresh baby spinach
1 cup salsa of your choice
5 or 6 green olives
Fresh tomatoes

In small skillet heat olive oil over medium heat and add onion. Saute for about a minute then add spinach. Stir and toss briefly to coat spinach leaves with oil/onion mixture, then add cooked pasta. Toss with tongs, then add salsa and olives. Keep tossing until well mixed. Plate it with fresh tomatoes on top.

Cinnamon Sugar Doughnut Muffins

While searching online for recipes, I happened upon the blog of Sweet Pea’s Kitchen and found this delicious recipe for doughnut muffins. I made them for my visiting kids and grand-kids this past weekend, and they could not stop talking about how good they were. And honestly, if I hadn’t doubled the recipe, we wouldn’t have had enough for the seven of us. The muffins themselves were just perfect – tender texture, not too sweet – and the cinnamon/sugar topping made them really special. I love the addition of nutmeg and used extra in mine. My family was eating these late in the day as well as for breakfast! Seriously, they are that good.

I did adapt the recipe in minor ways, so be sure to look at Sweet Pea’s original version.

Cinnamon Sugar Doughnut Muffins
Original recipe here
12 muffins

Muffins:
1-1/4 cups unbleached bread flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup 2% milk

Topping:
1/2 cup melted salted butter
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 12 muffin cups with muffin liners or spray with nonstick cooking spray.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon in large mixing bowl. In small bowl whisk together oil, sugar, egg and milk. Make well in center of dry ingredients, add liquid ingredients, and stir until just combined. Divide batter equally among prepared muffin cups. Bake until muffin tops are pale golden and springy to touch, 22 to 24 minutes, rotating halfway through baking time.

While muffins are baking, combine sugar and cinnamon. Place melted butter in small bowl. When muffins are finished baking, dip tops in melted butter and then into sugar/cinnamon mixture.

I served these with homemade turkey sausage and OJ. This recipe will be a definite repeat at my house.