Sucking the Last Juices From Summer: Individual Peach Dumplings

 

Technically, it may be fall, but in the Twin Cities the past week or so has felt like summer. Last week we even had temperatures in the 80s for a few days. If it wasn’t for all the bare trees and leaves piling up in the yard, you’d think we were still making our way through the summer months.

All of these warm, sunny afternoons have left me craving those delectable summer treats and when I dove into the box to find a recipe to satisfy my taste buds, I came out carrying a pamphlet for Colorado peaches. The pages contain several different peach recipes, but as soon as I made my way to the store and discovered how hard the fuzzy summer fruit would be to find, I decided to settle for just making one…if I could ever find fresh peaches.

One afternoon, Murphy and I began to make the rounds of all the local grocery stores in search of the main ingredient. Finally, at our last stop, we discovered a heaping pile of beautiful autumn-colored peaches. And they just happened to be from Colorado – how fitting! The smell floating up from the mound of ripe fruit was intoxicating and was the perfect match to the blue skies and rising mercury outside. 

A Treat for Any Season: Fruit or Berry Kuchen

 

The deep freeze has lifted – for now anyway. But in its wake, it left Minneapolis swaddled in a low-hanging gray haze. And the slowly melting snow has turned into a charcoal-colored soup sprinkled with road garbage. Lovely. Winter can be beautiful though. The other morning fog froze to all the trees leaving them coated in fuzzy crystals. The world was a gleaming white wonderland and I wanted to pet all the branches. Some of the heartier critters have even ventured out of their winter dens for a peak at the above zero temperatures. A few squirrels tried to engage Murphy in a game of chase, but he took a pass at the invitation. He wasn’t interested in plunging his sensitive feet through the crusty snow for a game in which he never wins.

He did put on his boots for a winter walk, however. Yes, my super-tough Golden Retriever who spends every Tuesday morning barking at the garbage trucks and demanding they leave the neighborhood, requires boots in order to go for walks in the winter. His tender feet are sensitive to both cold and road salt and without them, he doesn’t make it much past the end of the driveway. He doesn’t enjoy the process of putting them on, but once all four feet are protected he prances like a Tennessee Walking Horse and kicks it into turbo for the entire walk. As long as he’s moving, he’s a happy dog.

Sometimes we need a little help during the winter months to put that spring back into our step. For Murphy, that means slipping his feet into dog boots. For the rest of us, it might mean adding a little color to our overbearingly gray surroundings. And I have discovered just the cure for the winter doldrums:  Fruit or Berry Kuchen. This is very similar to the Apple Kuchen I made a couple of months ago, but for this variation I used strawberries and blueberries instead of apples. Both are out of season so they were a little pricey, but totally worth it. Just one bite of this delicious dessert and I could practically feel the summer sun beating down on my skin. When I opened my eyes, I realized it was just Murphy’s hot breath, but it was nice to dream for a moment. It was so good in fact, that we had to make it twice – once to celebrate the New Year and the long-awaited arrival of our new nephew with Ryan’s family, and a second time just to enjoy eating a fresh fruit dessert in the middle of winter. If you are yearning for the return of long summer days with a breeze that doesn’t freeze your nose together when you inhale, make this Berry Kuchen. It will cost a few extra dollars for the fresh fruit, but when you are instantly transported to your happy place on the first bite, you’ll be happy you splurged on this treat for yourself.

It’s In The Can: Apple Butter

While apples are still in season, I wanted to make a few more recipes that use them. And this recipe uses a lot of them! The card calls for 4 bowls of apples and 3 bowls of sugar. A little internet research told me that the translation to that is: 4 pounds of apples and 3 cups of sugar.

Be prepared when you make this recipe that it takes quite an investment of time (especially if you are going to can jars of it afterward) but it is completely worth it. It took me about 45 minutes just to core, peel and cut up the apples. Once everything is in the pot, it basically just cooks and makes the whole house smell delicious for about an hour.

Looking at the recipe, I knew this would make way more than my husband and I could consume so I decided to learn how to can so that I could give jars of it away. I purchased Mason jars from the grocery store and found a great site with instructions on exactly how to successfully can jellies and jams. I didn’t have the proper canning utensils, but made due with large pots, which worked, but I also burned the tips of most of my fingers quite nicely in the process. Note – do not attempt to lift jars out of a vat of boiling water using a spatula, wooden spoon and an Ove Glove. The next time I do this (which will be soon because I already have a list of people I want to send this delicious treat to), I will be using the proper canning equipment. To be honest, I was pretty intimidated by the idea of canning my own food. But despite a few minor burns, it was a lot easier than I thought. And it’s a great way to keep food for a long period of time without adding a ton of preservatives. 

If you have never had apple butter before, it’s worth a try. It isn’t butter, but instead a fruit spread that can be used on toast, English muffins, etc. and tastes like gooey cinnamon apples. It’s delicious! So good in fact, that for a few minutes while I enjoyed toast with warm apple butter, I completely forgot about the fire alarm going off (from all the heat in the kitchen), the dog barking (because the fire alarm was going off) and the fact that the tips of my fingers looked like little Rudolph noses. It was a pure Calgon moment.