NAT NESTS / PEACH CRUMBLE

Betty Crocker, our oven, recently got to take her maiden voyage as le four de Holbrook. We set her up with a nice peach crumble. They hit it off super well. Expect a save-the-date soon.

I was GOING to make a blueberry cobbler, but not a single blueberry could be found. And I was on bike so hells bells was I going to ride across town to the Rosauers to keep looking.

That's okay though because what I really excel at is orange food.

It was my first real kitchen experience since we moved in, apart from pouring bowls of cereal and stirring pots of oatmeal. She's a cute little kitchen. I killed two spiders! Part-way into it, Huck got it in his head that this should have been a chocolate cake, and all manner of angst and woe ensued. For a while it was looking pretty iffy--Huck would never love another dessert again--but we talked him down and he realized the merits of peaches and butter, and so he promised to give it a go. Just as the crumble was finishing up, about an hour later, Huck came down the stairs with a look of wonder on his face and said, breathlessly, "MOM! What smells so sweet!?" 

"It's the peach crumble, puppy!" I said, and then Huck melted down into another one of his shows of emotional turmoil. Re-opening the wound!!! I say!!! Here's some lemon juice, too!!!

He really is spectacular these days.

When it came time for dessert and it still wasn't chocolate cake, he girded up his loins and had himself a nibble, then perked up in his seat and exclaimed, 

"This is good! And I'm not even pretending!"

Oh, Huck.

EDUCATIONAL ASIDE: I definitely initially intended for this guy to be a peach crisp, but I sort of made things go in a weird direction when I accidentally heavy-handed the brown sugar and way under-did the butter. Later, while researching the differences between crisps and cobblers for this sparklingly informative and educational post, I realized my dessert was actually none of the above! It was a crumble! And there you have it. 

THIS REMINDS ME. Now I'm going to let you in on a little secret: You never need as much butter or granulated sugar as they tell you you need in a recipe. And you should always add way. more. cinnamon. Cinnamon is so underrated. Overdosing on brown sugar almost always leads to magic. In a chocolate chip cookie? I like to leave those chunks of petrified brown sugar intact because it is such a heavenly surprise when you bite into one. 

I hope you are all enjoying my disjointed thoughts on crumbles and cobblers and brown sugar and things, you know, this is what you do in recipe blogs I've noticed. Picture, boring paragraph about something dumb, another picture, another boring paragraph, and you're like "Scroll down scroll down! Dang it! I just want the recipe!"

Well. Brandon has trouble with the texture of peach skins, is my next barely interesting paragraph in this format which I am now sticking to like glue since I'm this far into it already. I sometimes get him a few nectarines when I'm picking up my end-of-summer peach haul, or else I plan to peel his for him (but, ew, slimy), and anyway, isn't that a tragedy? If you ask me, the skins are the best part of the peach and so I like to set mine aside for later. 

Similarly fantastic is the skin of a kiwi. Eat that sucker whole! The fruit, I mean. I am not advocating cannibalizing New Zealanders. 

PEACH CRUMBLE a la Idaho

Cause now it's regional and fancy.

INGREDIENTS /

filling

8-10 ripe fresh peaches, peeled and sliced

topping

1 cup all-purpose flour (you can substitute gluten free Cup 4 Cup if you'd like)

1 3/4 cups oatmeal

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup butter plus 1/4 cup, cubed 

2tsp cinnamon (go for an even tablespoon, I dare you)

METHOD /

1. preheat your oven to 350ºF

2. peel + slice your fresh peaches (the more ripe the better!) spoon them evenly into the bottom of a casserole dish

3. mix the topping until butter is pea-sized and evenly distributed (i like to use my hands for this bit). be sure to reserve the last 1/4 cup of butter for mid-baking.

4. spread topping mixture over the fruit and bake at 350ºF for 45 minutes. at the 35 minute mark, pull the dish out and sprinkle the remaining cubed butter over the top. give the topping a good smoosh or two with a wooden spoon while you're at it.

5. let sit for fifteen minutes

Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, or caramel sauce if you're feeling fancy.