Peaches, peaches and more peaches!

I've been obsessed with peaches this summer.  It must be a good year for them!

One day on Facebook, my daughter saw the mini peach cobblers made in a muffin pan.  So we made that and it was as good as that basic peach cobbler recipe is.  You know, the one with milk, flour and sugar combined and poured over the butter in the pan...yeah.   I can't find the link now or I would show you.  Anyway, don't do this unless you enjoy cleaning those 12 muffin holes.  Takes about as long as making the cobbler!

In the midst of the kitchen remodel, I rediscovered a couple of cookbooks.  So I tried one of the cobblers in there, hoping to recreate the crispy crust peach cobbler we had back in the school cafeteria.   It turned out just ok.

But I love the Simple Peach Sorbet that I ran across in the Southern Living Homestyle cookbook.  Only 3 simple ingredients!  It's a great way to finish off those peaches that are getting ripe.

Simple Peach Sorbet

4 or 5 fresh ripe peaches, peeled and chopped
3/4 cup sugar
 1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

1) Process in a blender until smooth, stopping to scape down the sides.  Pour mixture into a pan.  Cover and freeze 3 hours or until firm.
2) Remove the pan from freezer, let stand 10 minutes.  Break frozen mixture into chunks and process again until smooth and serve.

In step 2, after letting it stand long enough to scoop it out of the pan, I skip the rest of that step and just eat it.

Yummy!  Now gotta go join Jamie, she's having a peachy party and Michelle's always having a potluck!

Thai-Style Tuna Burgers

I almost passed over these Thai Style Tuna Burgers in the Sweet As Pie Cooking Club selections.  It just didn't sound appealing at the time.  

But I do like canned tuna.  I was raised on it, we had tuna salad sandwiches often for lunch.  I keep a couple of cans in the pantry.  You never know when it will come in handy!  My daughters, however, are not fans of tuna.

So why not try a new spin on it?  This recipe makes 4 burgers, just enough to try without feeling like a lot of time or money was wasted.   It also turned out to be easy and healthy!

The recipe starts with a ginger/mayo mixture.  I used ginger in a jar since I had it on hand.  If you don't care for the strong ginger flavor, just don't spread the ginger/mayo on the bun.

I got my daughter to try it by telling her "if you like ginger with your sushi, you'll like this, just try it".   She liked it.  The Bassman liked it too.

The best thing about them, other than being healthy, is that the 2 year old grandaughter liked it too.  I love a good peanut and butter and jelly sandwich, but I was glad to find an alternative to change out the lunch options!

Pork Chops with Garlic and Wine

The kitchen is open now and I'm still trying to find my way around it!  Although I still need to pick out a paint color and actually do the painting myself, maybe I'll take a few photos soon to share.  Getting the island top cleared off to take the photos seems to be as difficult as picking out a paint color!  Ha ha! Anyway, I'm trying to catch up on the Sweet As Pie Cooking Club selections.

This Pioneer Woman Pork Chops with Garlic and Wine dish was pretty quick to prepare.  The number of servings was perfect for our dinner and a lunch of leftovers.

Although we love all the ingredients...we love pork chops on the grill, we love garlic in a lot of things, we love red wine, but we just didn't love these things together.  Maybe using white wine as she suggested would have been better.

Just not one of P-dubs best.

White Cheddar-Chive Pimiento Cheese

We love pimiento cheese around here so I was excited to see another version to try in the Sweet As Pie Cooking Club.  We put it on bread, crackers and on celery sticks.  It doesn't last long!  I've noticed it a lot lately making an appearance at local restaurants.  They spread it on hamburgers, shrimp and grits and chicken sandwiches!  That reminds me, I should also make Mrs. Mattie's Southern Pimiento Cheese again.

My chive pot out back has been busy this summer!  This recipe is one of the reasons.

The recipe description says the key to great pimiento cheese texture is to grate the cheese yourself (which I usually do) using both sides of the grater (which I usually don't).  

So I tried this dual grating thing (pictured above).  The result is cheese stuck on both sides of the grater.  I didn't notice or hear any feedback on improved pimiento cheese texture.  Sometimes the best things are just quickly thrown together which is what I did and why I don't have more pictures to share!

I took this to my Mom's to have with her chicken stew at our big family gathering.  There were no leftovers!  I'll make it again, probably without pictures again.

Banana Pudding @ The Well

My go-to banana pudding recipe is this one from Southern Plate.   I like my banana pudding warm.

But this summer, the Sweet As Pie Cooking Club challenged me to try a new one.   This was a great opportunity since I needed a large dessert for our Fourth of July get together.  So I chose this one by Paula Deen.

It is a great cold dessert on a hot summer day and everyone loved it!  Even the leftovers were eaten the next day.  It can and should be made ahead of time.  Those Chessman cookies, with their small bag and big price, were a first for me.  I think one can save that $ and use some of those yummy butter or shortbread cookies from the generic cookie section or vanilla wafers.

And then, just as we were enjoying this new version of banana pudding, Paula Deen was all over the news.  Oh my.  Not good.  Is this true?  Is this really happening?  I live in the South and I'm asking myself this question.  Because we're human, racism and judgement of others is a reality.  We all do it, we all judge others in some way and tend to stay in our comfort zone.  It's not easy to deal with.  It gets complicated so then we avoid it.  Our best chance (and only) of overcoming racism is to see each other as God sees us.  Beautiful souls that we are.  Our best chance is for each of us to individually, deep inside us, seek Him and His wisdom first.  Put God's work first and do what he wants.  Then other things will be ours.  Including freedom from this issue that causes so much hate among us.  Treat others like we want to be treated.  It's not easy, but I believe it is possible.

Banana pudding will always be a reminder to me of this event and my need for Him in my life!

Country Quiche

Let's just go ahead and say if there's a man quiche, this Country Quiche might be it.  It has a good ratio of sausage to egg and cheese and no green stuff like spinach!   Trisha says Garth likes it and so did the Bassman and I.  Typically, quiche is one of those dishes that I'll try when someone else makes it.

It is easy to assemble.  Although I fried sausage myself, that step could be skipped by using Jimmy Dean prepared sausage crumbles in the frozen food section.

This was the first dish baked in the new oven.  There's actually nothing that I bake regularly, so might as well try the new oven out with a new dish!

The portion size in the picture above looks deceiving.  I had two of those so be aware a realistic portion size might be closer to 1/4 a pie!