Waiting for Peach Cake

You know me, I appreciate a good recipe when I see one. If I find something new and intriguing, it will have to meet several criteria to make it into my favorites box where I will work it into my repertoire:

• manageable, reasonable instructions
• easily obtained ingredients
• crowd favorite
• doesn't create a disaster in my kitchen

I have also found that some foods feel right in summer, while others feel right in cold weather. I never want to eat salad in the winter. Soup in August is out of the question. 

Summer = watermelon, ribs, salads, peaches, blueberries, tomatoes, anything grilled

Winter = soup, stew, warm bread, roasts, casseroles (We visited Krakow, Poland a few times and were once served bread with a crock full of lard as an appetizer. I guess they understand the concept of fattening oneself up before a bitterly cold winter.)

I've always wanted to be great at ribs. Pork ribs. The rack you find in the meat department that is just begging for an audience of hungry men. I knew there was some mystery about slow cooking, but I was unsure of myself, and unwilling to make the investment. But then one day, I had an email pop up from Smitten Kitchen (one of my favorites) with the perfect directions. I tried it, and they were amazing. The hungry men in my life were full and happy and there were even leftovers. I discovered the secret to a great brisket when I lived in TX as a newlywed, and the plentiful meat from a slab of beef like that is also a big crowd-pleaser. Summer meats. Summer yummy. Ribs will definitely find their way into my recipe box!

Another summer treat is peaches. It almost seems sinful to do anything with a perfectly ripe peach other than just eat it in its natural form. But I have super-fond memories of being in the kitchen with my Grandma on a hot summer afternoon, peeling peaches for her Peach Cake. It wasn't really a cake; more of a flatbread with peaches on top. But we called it cake and we only got this treat once in a great while, and definitely only in summer. Now that I'm a grownup with broader culinary experience, I know that what she made is probably more like a danish that can be obtained from a bakery, but I want to remember it fondly like it is in my memory - a sweet summer treat that we rarely got to enjoy. 

Millie's Peach Cake

Peel 4 lbs. of ripe peaches and dice into a bowl. Sprinkle 1/3 c. sugar on top and let sit for an hour. 

Meanwhile, prepare a sweet bread dough (I always use this recipe from my old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook) and let it rise through the first rising. After it rises for one hour, divide in half and press each half onto a large, greased jelly-roll pan or large cookie sheet. It should be quite thin. Poke with a fork all over. Drain peaches and reserve the juice. Spread peaches over dough. 

Make a syrup with the peach juice. Add 1 T cornstarch, 1 t. cinnamon and 1/2 c. sugar to 1 c. water and combine with peach juice in a sauce pan. Cook down on medium heat, whisking constantly to form a thickened syrup. Pour over peaches. Sprinkle edges of dough with cinnamon sugar. 

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Serve warm. 

Here's a little commentary on delayed gratification, like waiting for those rare moments in summer when my grandmother made a Peach Cake. For those of you over about 35, remember waiting for those favorite Disney movies to come on TV only once per year? Remember when we waited for Christmas time to watch The Sound of Music? Or until Halloween when It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown came on? I can remember seeing the announcement for Swiss Family Robinson, marking it on the calendar and making it a family event to watch it when it came on TV. Such a treat. I feel nostalgic and sad when I think about that, because my grandchildren will never know what it is like to wait weeks or months in anticipation of a favorite movie. It seems everything is 'on-demand' and we don't usually have to wait for anything. Maybe part of being an excellent homemaker is to create such anticipation for special things. Save turkey for Thanksgiving and the gingerbread house for Christmas. Only serve a really good smoked ham with scalloped potatoes for Easter dinner (and for Pete's sake - have an Easter dinner!). Save cake for birthdays. Make pancakes only on Saturday mornings and pizza on Friday nights. 

We recently hosted an outdoor movie for our neighbors and we watched...yep, Swiss Family Robinson, one of my childhood favorites. Here are some pictures from that night! So much fun!

PLUMBING ALERT: Dutch Oven Bread

My husband is a champ. I mean, men end up having a lot of the nasty jobs at home, but this one took the cake. My kitchen sink has been clogging lately, and like the wonderful handy guy that he is, he set about finding the problem and working a solution. Fortunately, all the guts of my kitchen plumbing are accessible from my basement ceiling, and it was easy to get to. Otherwise, this would have been a nearly impossible fix.

(Warning: the next paragraph could turn your stomach...not meant to be read around meal times.) I was upstairs putzing around while Kirk commenced the sleuthing. I heard some banging, and sawing, and then a loud, groaning, gutteral sort of..."UGGHHHH!!!" I raced downstairs, to find him doubled over, gagging and groaning in disgust. I saw the nasty in a pan, but he said, "I know you've had babies and all, but don't look up." Of course, I looked and it was absolutely the most disgusting sight I've seen in the United States. I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say that it was not what you would have expected to see in the drain line from a kitchen sink. He had cut the 3" PVC pipe a few feet from the bottom of the sink, and found it solid with a thick white-ish substance, with a few beans, pieces of corn and other various pieces of food thrown in. It was filled like this for about 10 feet. And the smell, well, I don't even want to begin to describe it, but we both covered our noses while we worked to remove the offending mess.

We were baffled.

What could it possibly have been? We got it cleaned up and the pipe changed out after a good 2 hours of hard and foul labor. He took a long hot shower and we literally threw away his clothes.

 

The next morning, I was working at my newly well-drained kitchen sink when it dawned on me: the dutch oven bread. I have just started making this bread in recent months, probably ten times, and each time I make it (as those of you who have tried it know) there is a fair amount of residual dough left in the bowl when it is dumped onto the counter to rest before baking. Because this recipe is a very wet dough, it doesn't come out of the bowl neatly; there is always a bit left sticking to the sides of the bowl that must be cleaned up. I had been washing this in the sink because it is so liquid. For the past few months, it has been collecting in my drain line, rising, and filling the line, fermenting...over and over again. And then consequently collecting other small bits and pieces of things that make it past my mesh stopper. I have a septic system, so I don't have a disposal, and this may have been contributing to the problem, but if there is any clog at all in the line, this dough could greatly complicate things quickly.

If my drain line had been under the house or the ground or buried in a concrete slab, it would have been a HUGE, wildly expensive repair. I am wondering if others have suffered their own mystery clog, and thought I'd better pass along our experience. I hope I am the only one, because I wouldn't wish that repair on my worst enemy.

And a big shout-out to my hero, always, Kirk Metty. I love you. I love that you can fix stuff. I love that you love me enough to clean up all the nasty stuff in my life.