Heritage Table

Summer is winding down so we're in a low-scale frenzy to cook stuff from our local vendors. We got some green tomatoes a few days ago to make green tomato cake. Hey, don't knock it until you've tried it!

I bought a half peck of peaches, part of which got made into a cobbler and the rest into a peach bbq sauce. We've got several big tomatoes sitting around that are waiting to find their way into a BLT sammich. There is a bag of grape tomatoes (I think that's what they are, at any rate) that we've been eating one at a time. And there a re several zucchinis on the counter that I haven't figured out what to do with yet...zucchini bread I guess!

And that's not counting various peppers I buy with no plan that end up just getting all wrinkled before they get tossed in the compost bin. (I did slice up a bunch of serrano peppers to pickle.) Or the basil that I let sit in a glass of water until it shriveled up.

Then there's the urgency around getting in some grilling and smoking before the weather gets cold. I'll get into all that in my next post.

It's been a cobbler-type of summer so far. And crisps. And crumbles. And buckles. And grunts. And slumps.

We're lucky in that we live close to several "pick your own" farms that grow strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and peaches. As we all know, there's nothing like summer fruits right out of the patch for good baking.

We hit the strawberry patch several times back in June. Strawberry picking is for kids...too much squatting down and standing up for us (almost) septuagenarians.

We went for raspberries just once.

Lately, we've been hitting a nearby blueberry farm pretty frequently.

And August has brought in the peaches. (These aren't "pick your own" but they are "right off the tree".)

America's Test Kitchen has the best blueberry cobbler recipe. It's the "fruit under sweet drop biscuits" approach. My favorite peach cobbler is the "batter over peaches and butter" version. (There are lots of that recipe around.)

We also made some peach sauce/syrup that should go great over pancakes. It's good in tea, too.

In the past, we froze lots of summer fruit but we'd let it sit in the freezer for...years, in some cases. This year, we're taking more of a "pick what you can use today" approach. It's simpler.

So...this afternoon is peach cobbler....our third in the past month!

We'll let you know how it turns out!