How do you spell relief

It being ice cream month, along with a gentle nudge from my friend Louise at Months of Edible Celebrations, who says she can easily 'scoop up gallons of ice cream' passed on a link heading me to Modern Day Ozzie and Harriet,and, the best darn peaches and cream ice cream recipe I've ever made! Now that's how I spell r-e-l-i-e-f!

Is there no end in sight for these dreadful muggies we are seeing? Well let me assure you--if you are sweltering in your neck of the woods give this absolutely cooling and scrumptious recipe a try. I've been assured you'll sweat off the calories after ingesting --lickety split! I just knew it was in the stars when I went to farmers market Saturday to pick up my tray of fresh peaches to make more peach jam. I made mention to my friends Ann & Howard that I'd just love to make some peach ice cream one of these days so they insisted I take home some slightly bruised peaches to give it a try.

When I arrived home--I started my prep work for the jam, when I recalled reading a post over at Louise's blog mentioning National Ice Cream month--so back I went to re-read her post. It was there that I hit the jackpot! A link to Marjie's blog with easy instructions, and even better, I had all the ingredients in the house. The only changes I made to her recipe was to substitute almond extract, for the vanilla, added a titch of cardamon powder and used heavy whipping cream for the 'cream'. I also cut back just a bit on the sugar amount called for and as my ice cream maker was chugging along we just couldn't stop ourselves from sampling spoonful after spoonful of this luscious blend. My ice cream maker makes two quarts and as luck would have it--so doesn't this recipe.



Peaches N' Cream Ice Cream

Slightly modified. Recipe by Marjie at Modern Day Ozzie and Harriet


6 large peaches--washed, pitted and cut into chunks (skin & all)
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp almond extract
2 cups heavy cream (whipping cream)
a pinch of cardamon powder *opt

Place the peach chunks into the food processor and whirl via the pulse button until moderately chopped. I didn't want it to end up a pureee of peaches. It's one of the things I really enjoy about peach ice cream--finding those delicious pieces of fruit with every lick. I also liked the idea of leaving the skins on the cut fruits for that added extra fiber, as Marjie suggested. Once the peaches have been chopped, sprinkle on the 1/4 cup of sugar--give it a couple of whirls and allow fruit mixture to rest, about an hour.
After the time has elapsed, whisk in the remaining sugar into the milk,along with just a pinch of powdered cardamon. combining well. Then whisk in the almond or vanilla extract and heavy cream. Gently stir in the peach mixture and pour into your ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer's instructions. I processed mine 25 minutes. I packed it into two 1-quart containers knowing it won't last the week. :) Enjoy & stay cool!

Pearls of pleasure--Blueberries

Think pearls. No, not the neck adornment, but instead hundreds of perfectly round orbs. Think blueberries. I know, I went a little blueberry crazy here. But, I mean, BLUEBERRIES! How can anyone not love those plump, sweet blue pearls of utter sweet and so healthy goodness? Yes, I went blueberry picking again, and in just a short time collected 20 pounds of fruit, enough to gorge ourselves and have plenty leftover to freeze for later holiday pies and winter desserts. And we musn't forget homemade blueberry ice cream. I’m so glad its summer.

Sure there are other delectable berries. Strawberries in late June and then the fragrant delicate raspberries (another personal favorite)and then the thorny, meaty blackberries of our late summer. But by far, my favorite berry of the season are blueberries! Crisps,grunts,scones,cheesecake, turnovers,cobblers, pies -- even Tuscan chicken--the list goes on and on in my kitchen when it comes to blueberries. But one thing I'd never tried is making a galette. I don't know why. I just love the rustic look and carefree assembly about them. Savory, or sweet. You get to decide what fillings will go into them.

For my first I wasn't going to pass up the chance to use up some of my fresh picked blueberries along with some fresh peaches our good friends Ann & Howard gave us, from their fruit farm along with her famous honey peach jam recipe. Thanks so much Ann for your generosity--your delicious peaches were the perfect addition to my first galette. And the jam turns out just awesome!

I ended up making two smaller galettes, about nine inch rounds and delivered the 2nd one to my good friend Lee who has a sweet tooth as large as my own. :)



Blueberry Peach Galette

Pastry

2 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
1 cup chilled and cubed butter
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup cold water

2 TBLS milk - to wash top of dough before baking
2 TBLS sugar - to sprinkle over crust

In a food processor, combine the flour, salt and 1 tsp sugar until well mixed. Add the butter using pulses until you no longer see chunks of butter in the dough. Use pulses to get everything to mix together correctly,and does a better job of breaking up the butter rather than letting the machine just run.

Slowly add the ice water a tablespoon at a time while pulsing the dough until it is evenly distributed and it begins to look like play-dough. If you need to add a bit more water--add it only a teaspoon at a time. You don't want your dough to be too wet-- but it should hold together nicely.




Remove the dough from the food processor and knead for a few minutes until it begins to smooth out. Don't overwork the dough, you just want it to come together and smooth out a little bit, it should really only take a couple of minutes. Divide the dough in half, flatten into discs, cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about an hour. At this point you can also freeze this dough for later use, up to a couple of months. Seldom does it last this long in my freezer during fruit season.

Preparing the filling


2 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
2 1/2 cups sliced peaches
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
pinch of cardamon powder
2 1/2 TBLS tapioca powder (I found mine in an Asian grocer) or cornstarch
2 TBLS honey peach jam
3 amaretto cookies-crushed
1 egg & a bit of milk

While your dough is chilling, prepare the filling. Place the blueberries and peach slices in a bowl. Add the sugars, cinnamon, a pinch of cardamon powder,tapioca powder (or cornstarch) and stir gently. You want the fruits well covered.

Preheat the oven to 350º.
Remove one of the discs of dough from the refrigerator and roll out into a circle to about an eleven inch round. Don't worry if your edges aren't smooth or perfect--galettes aren't meant to be perfect, but rather rustic looking.. as you can see from my first one...it's pretty rustic :) You’re in good shape. Take a pastry scraper and transfer the dough round to a parchment paper lined sheet pan.

Now crumble up the amaretto cookies and place in the center of your rolled out pastry disc. (I like to add these crumbs to most of my fruit pies--they help to absorb much of the excess juice that will form while baking, so I figured I couldn't go wrong here.) Yup, pile the crumbs right in the middle. Give your bowl of fruits one last stir and layer right over the cookie crumbs and spread around leaving a two inch border of dough.

Roughly fanfold the 2 inch border of crust all around your galette every couple of inches or so and give each fold a gentle pinch to hold it in place. I have to admit, I needed to do my fanfolding twice to get it to look the way I had it envisioned in my mind--but there are no rights or wrongs to doing this step. Take two tablespoons of peach jam and spread it over the fruits. Beat egg with milk and brush over the galette dough and sprinkle with sugar. Pop it into the oven and bake for approximately 30 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and the blueberries are bubbly. As the first galette is baking, prepare your second one or save the dough for another day of berry picking!

Here's where the hard part comes in. Remove from the oven and cool very well before slicing. As you can see from my photos, I moved one a little too early and my dough cracked. But did this stop me from having a second piece piled high with vanilla bean ice cream? Nope! :-) Simply too scrumptious to pass up! Enjoy!