Peach Jam Cookies

 

Look at these little guys. They're perfect. Seriously, I believe these may be my new favorite cookies. They're delicate, not to sweet, and are faintly flavored with fruit jam (feel free to substitute your favorite jam here). Plus, they look so lovely you can't help but feel fancy. I can't imagine a better accompaniment to a good cup of afternoon tea. I tip my hat to a good friend of me for introducing me to this recipe (hi Mary!).

Peach Jam Cookies
Heavily adapted from Joy the Baker
2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
Pinch of salt
1 stick butter, room temperature*
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup peach jam (again, feel free to play around with different flavors)
A handful of whole almonds
Powdered sugar for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together dry ingredients and set aside.

3. With a hand mixer (or a stand mixer if you're fancy), beat together butter until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add sugar and beat until well incorporated, about 2 minutes. Add egg and beat for additional 2 minutes. Add milk and vanilla and beat to combine. Add jam and beat to combine. With the beaters or mixture on low, slowly add dry ingredients until just combined. Do not overmix!

4. Spoon the dough onto parchment lined cookie sheets in small balls and flatten slightly with your fingers or the back of a spoon. Press an almond onto the top of each cookie. Bake for 10-12 minutes, rotating cookie sheets halfway through**, until cookies are slightly firm and very lightly golden brown at the edges. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.

*I don't buy unsalted butter because I think it's silly. If you happen to be using unsalted butter, I guess we can still be friends, but up the amount of salt you add to 1/4 tsp.

** Make sure you actually do this. If they cook unevenly the bottoms will burn!

Ratatouille

I love ratatouille. It's as close as you can get to a summer stew. As September flies by I think we are all a little nervous about summer produce vanishing from the market stands. I find myself ravishing the market as soon as I get there in search of heirloom tomatoes, breathing a sigh of relief when I find them but dreading the day when their spot on the shelf is empty. Luckily, in California that time won't be for a few weeks (knock on wood), so I've been able to enjoy the end of the summer's feast.

Ratatouille is the perfect celebration of summer flavors. It gently crosses the line between summer and fall; it uses late summer veggies, but is cooked down much like the hearty fall and winter stews we know lie ahead. Sure, summer produce is magnificent fresh from the farmstand. But the flavors of summer vegetables change in wonderful ways if you cook them a while. They intensify and blend in glorious ways as if truly made for each other.

Traditional recipes call for each vegetable to be cooked individually (although I am very skeptical as to whether or not the first French peasant woman to make ratatouille did this -- I have a feeling she just threw whatever was leftover from harvest in a pot and let the vegetables do their thing). This recipe is much simpler in method and tastes delicious. I closely followed a recipe from Mark Bittman, although I did make some minor changes (cooking the zucchini and onions longer, adding more tomatoes, and tossing in fresh basil and parsley to the ratatouille as well), but kept Bittman's simple technique the same. Served atop a pool of creamy polenta, it's warm and filling like fall stews but filled with summer flavors. It's a perfect dinner to enjoy exactly where we are.

Ratatouille
Serves 3-4 as a main dish, 6-8 as a side dish -- Adapted, slightly, from Mark Bittman
3 Japanese eggplants (you can use regular eggplant too, I just like the flavor and texture of the Japanese variety), diced in 1 inch cubes
2 medium zucchini, diced in 1 inch cubes
1/3 to 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
1 tsp. dried herbs (I used Italian seasoning here, but thyme would be great)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
6 or 7 Roma tomatoes, diced in 1 inch cubes
1/2 cup chopped basil
1/2 cup chopped parsley

1. Heat 1/4 cup of olive oil over medium high heat in a large skillet or heavy bottomed pot. Add diced eggplant, stirring to coat, and cook over medium high heat for about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Lower the heat to medium, and cook for another 10 minutes or until eggplant is very soft.

2. Add zucchini and onions and more olive oil if needed. Cook for 10-15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Add herbs and garlic. Add tomatoes and cook for another 5 minutes, until tomatoes are cooked through and release their juices. Stir in chopped basil and parsley and season with salt and pepper. Garnish with extra basil or parsley. Serve immediately.

Two Meals, Same Ingredients

Hurry! Race to your local market and buy some peaches before they're gone! There isn't much time left! While you're there, pick up some arugula, goat cheese, and thinly sliced prosciutto (trust me). What are you waiting for?? GO! Don't worry, I'll wait.

Back? Good. Now lets talk about these two delicious dishes I made last week with the handful of lovely ingredients I just told you about.

A few weeks ago, I had an amazing salad at a wonderful restaurant in San Diego called Bankers Hill. Now, it's not that I don't like healthy food, I'm usually just not one to go gaga over a salad. But this salad was to die for, featuring innovative flavor combinations and a whole spectrum of textures. There was spicy, crisp arugula, juicy, succulent peaches, creamy, tangy goat cheese, salty, sweet prosciutto, and rich crunchy almonds. Do you see why I was totally blown away? After one bite, I knew I had to try and recreate it.

It was simple really. So simple that I'm not going to even give you a real recipe. Trust me guys, you got this. Just toast up some almonds in a skillet, wash the arugula and pile it on a plate, then scatter over thinly sliced peaches, prosciutto ribbons, and big chunks of goat cheese. Finish off the salad with some chopped toasted almonds and dressing of your choice (I opted for a simple balsamic dressing). Easy, right? And it's totally delicious!

The day after I made this salad I still had all of the ingredients. But as delicious as the salad was, I thought it would be fun to try to use them in a different way. I wanted to figure out a way for that goat cheese to get warm and melty (because, really, isn't that the best way to eat cheese?). I thought of pizza, but I didn't want to make dough. Then I realized I could totally nix the dough and just use bread instead to make open faced sandwiches. Brilliant, right?

I grabbed a couple of slices of Tuscan bread that I'd bought from Trader Joe's earlier that week, laid them on a baking sheet, and lightly drizzled olive oil over each one. Then I laid down those thinly sliced peaches and small pieces of prosciutto. I crumbled goat cheese on top, and slid the bread into a 450 degree oven. About 10 minutes later, the bread was toasty on the bottom, the cheese warm, soft, and very lightly browned at the edges, and the peaches practically melting into the bread. I sliced up the bread and topped each piece with fresh arugula that had been lightly tossed in balsamic. These little flatbreads were to die for. The flavors were even brighter than they'd been in the salad, and the whole meal was so filling and satisfying.

In the end, I loved both meals for different reasons. The flavors are great together so really you can't go wrong. I found the salad to be a bit fresher, while the flatbreads were a little more hearty. Either way, these fleeting summer flavors should be enjoyed while they last.

Lemon Blueberry Frozen Yogurt

POP QUIZ: How do you make your kitchen feel like an Italian gelateria? Why, make lemon-blueberry frozen yogurt of course! Okay, so frozen yogurt isn't gelato at all. But doesn't this lovely container look like it would fit right in amongst the stracciatella and the gianduja? Oh, how I miss Italy.

Truthfully, I was a little heartbroken when I stumbled upon this lovely post on Orangette yesterday evening. I'd made this gelato weeks before she posted it, even though it seems like I'm a big ole' copy cat. Lemon and blueberry and definitely a classic combination though and the flavors shine through in frozen yogurt form. I even tried a lemon blueberry flavor at an ice cream shop last week (though I thought that my frozen yogurt was better!).

This frozen yogurt is bright, refreshing, and just what you'll want to eat on a warm summer afternoon. Frozen yogurt, rather than ice cream, is the perfect vehicle for these flavors because the natural tartness of the yogurt brings out all that citrus flavor in the lemon. The blueberry ribbons running through it are sweet and juicy, enough so that you may find yourself licking the bottom of the bowl to savor all of their goodness. I followed this recipe from Food and Wine magazine, and while it has a lot of steps, the end result is certainly worth the effort. This frozen yogurt is sure to make another appearance in my freezer sometime soon. After all, I have to recreate Italy somehow.