Friday, August 6, 2010

So behind!

It is embarrassing how long it's been since I last posted!  I expected to come back and find that all of my followers had given up on me.
It looks like I just posted my previous post, but I actually wrote that up weeks ago and just now added the pictures.  I've been such a slacker lately.  And I haven't been doing that much cooking.  I was away for a week in Minnesota for an Immunology course, and I did some cooking before I left, but haven't done any since I got back!  As usual, I'm going to try to break up the recipes to one per post, and in chronological order of course.  Not that the order even matters.  But just ask my friends - when I tell any kind of story, it must be in order.  
I think the girls night I had with a few of my friends is the perfect place to start.  It started out as a movie night, and then I said I would make dessert (surprise surprise), and then my friend J said she would cook dinner, then we decided we needed movie snacks...let's just say there was a lot of food!
It was so much fun.  And the food was amazing!  My friend J made Korean sushi, called Kimbap.  She had the bamboo roller and cool seaweed sheets, and even let us help her make roll them up!


We assembled a TON!  And then somehow ate most of them.  We made a lot without meat, for my benefit, which I definitely appreciated :)


Don't they look so perfect?
While we were stuffing ourselves with Kimbap, I stuck my crumble in the oven.  Oh it was so delicious! And it smelled so good while it was cooking.  If you have fresh peaches and berries, please make this recipe!
By the way, I think the distinction between crumbles, crisps and cobblers is pretty funny.  Just in case you're wondering, crisps have a topping that includes oats, crumbles have a thick, almost cookie dough-like topping that is, you guessed it, crumbled on, and cobblers have a biscuit topping on top.  
This recipe is really easy.  I was multi-tasking, of course, so I had the topping going in the mixer while I was doing other things.  It was still in very dry crumbs so looked like it had a while before it would come together.  I turn back around and the whole thing had come together in a big ball, and looked just like cookie dough!  Whoops!  But...it still turned out very well and tasted amazing.  I was reading the reviews on the Food Network website, and some people mentioned that the topping was a little doughy, but delicious.  Maybe they did the same thing I did :)
The only thing I did to change it was to replace half of the blueberries with some raspberries I had picked and frozen in June.  I think they added a necessary tartness to the really sweet dish.  And they made the sauce really pretty!  I'm sure any fruit combination would work for this recipe.
Oh, and Ina made individual crumbles - I just threw it all together in a gratin dish.

Recipe: Peach and Blueberry (and Raspberry) Crumble (from Barefoot Contessa)
Ingredients:
Fruit:
2 lbs firm, ripe peaches (6-8)
2 tsp grated lemon zest
2 tbsp squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
1/2 cup frozen raspberries

Crumble:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 stick cold unsalted butter, diced

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Peel the peaches - the easiest way is to put them in boiling water for 30 seconds-1 minute, then put them in a bowl of ice water.  The skins will peel off easily, but only if they are ripe enough.  If that doesn't work, just use a vegetable peeler.  Slice the peaches into thick wedges, and toss in a bowl with the lemon juice, zest, flour and sugar.  Gently mix in the blueberries and raspberries.
For the topping, combine the flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Mix on low speed until the butter is the size of small peas.  Rub the mixture with your fingers until it is in big crumbles, and spread over the fruit.  
Place your dish (or ramekins, if you choose to make individual crumbles) on a sheet pan and bake for 40-50 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the juices are bubbling.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

The unbaked crumbles can be stored in the refrigerator before baking.

1 comment:

Memória said...

Whoa!!! Everything looks fantastic!