Garden Recipes: Green Peach Salad

Sometimes there are so many peaches on your tree, you’re eating and drinking the beautiful fruit, but you’ve got to have something for lunch that is not quite so sweet.  Have this:

Green Peach Salad (for 4 to 6)
2 ½ lb. unripe peaches, peeled and sliced like you’re going to make a pie
Scant ¼ c sugar *
½ t salt
½ t freshly ground black pepper
2 T excellent, flavorful olive oil
2 T fresh mint chiffonade
A handful of arugula for each plate

Toss the peaches with the sugar and salt and let them sit for ten minutes. Add olive oil, mint and pepper and refrigerate for 30+ minutes.  Put a handful of arugula on each plate and then the peach salad. You can also add small or medium shrimp, some garlic mayonnaise and sliced scallions. That’s good too.

*Scant means “just barely.”

Photo Credit: Peach Salad, Creative Commons, Peach salad by viamarisol, is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. 

Garden Cocktails: Peach Bellini

It isn’t surprising news—peaches are in season until September. In the last throes of the summer, we’ll be looking back on these lush days and lush stone fruits a little wistfully. Peaches for every meal would be perfect…breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and cocktails. The trees grow best in full sun in a location where cold air or frost will not settle. Sounds like they grow well in California…Get yourself a tree!  But first, have a drink.

How many Bellinis have you had? Ever make it with fresh peaches?  Invite a friend and celebrate the summer with this easy garden cocktail.

Fresh Peach Bellini (for the two of you)

2 ripe but not squishy white peaches, seed removed, diced (they smell so good)
1 T freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ t honey
1 bottle Prosecco

Put the first three ingredients in a food processor or blender and puree. Press the mixture through a sieve.  Put 2 tablespoons of the puree into each champagne coupe and fill with cold Prosecco. Drink. Repeat.

Be full of praise for peaches, Prosecco and summer.

Photo Credit:

White Peaches, Creative Commons, White Peaches by Dave Parker, is licensed under CC by 2.0

Garden Cocktails: Blood Orange – The Midwick Sally

Blood Oranges are nearing the end of their season, but don’t forsake our favorite citrus yet, use them with gusto!  They are called Blood Oranges for their deep red flesh and rosy blush on the skin, and are the perfect blend of juicy, sweet and tart. Traditionally grown in Italy, Blood Oranges are popular with chefs for use in creating amazing sauces, sorbets and desserts and cocktails.

These sunny citrus gems should be firm and heavy for their size and might have red/orange skin or just look like a plain old orange.  They should have a sweet, clean scent and may temporarily stain your fingers when you squeeze enough juice to make…

THE MIDWICK SALLY

1 oz. Blood Orange juice
1 oz. Rye Whiskey
½ oz. lime juice
½ oz. Aperol

Shake with ice in a cocktail shaker and serve it over ice in a rocks glass.  Garnish it with a Blood Orange slice frosted with sea salt perched on the rim.  Make one for your friend, too. Or your sister.

Garden Cocktails: Winter Collins

Persimmons always remind me of little, even more colorful pumpkins. Sometimes, after all of the leaves have dropped from the persimmon trees in Autumn, they look like ornaments hung on a tree. If they didn’t get mushy, I might want to make Jack-o’-Lanterns out of them, or candle holders. This is the season, and whether you like the flat, solid Fuyu or the pointy Hachiya, they each have their perfect use. The Fuyu doesn’t need to soften, its crunch and sweetness is a fine complement to fall salads, but I think the softer, more astringent Hachiya really works in this cocktail.

Ingredients:

3 oz vodka; the finer, the better the cocktail
3 oz persimmon syrup (see below)
1 oz fresh Meyer lemon juice
Fizzy water
Persimmon slice and lemon slice for garnish

Fill a cocktail shaker and two Old-Fashioned glasses with ice.  Combine vodka, persimmon syrup and lemon juice in the shaker.  Seal and shake, shake, shake for half a minute.  Strain into the glasses and top off with fizzy water.  Garnish with a lemon slice and a persimmon slice.

Persimmon Syrup

2 small semi-firm persimmons, chopped
¾ c sugar
¾ c water
3 2” strips lemon zest, NO PITH
¼ c lemon juice 2 star anise

Combine persimmons, sugar, water, lemon zest, lemon juice and star anise in a saucepan set over medium heat. Bring it to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer for 20 minutes. Remove zest and anise, puree and pour into a container with a lid. Chill before using.

Photo Credit:

Persimmons, Creative Commons, hachiya by Robert Couse-Baker, is licensed under CC by 2.0

Garden Recipe: Fig and Bleu Bites

Figs. Blue. Sweet. Savory.

What about those four words together doesn’t sound like a mashup you want to eat and with which you want to ply your guests?  We have a struggling little fig tree that provides about enough figs to make three tablespoons of fig preserves. Sometimes more, but at least figs are here this time of year and waiting for you to use them.

These are easy, so good, and you can even buy the fig preserves instead of making them.  This recipe makes about 3 dozen.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup flour
• ½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 4 ounces Point Reyes Original Blue cheese (or something equally as wonderful), crumbled
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Fig preserves, about 3 Tablespoons

RECIPE:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the flour, butter, blue cheese and a few grinds of black pepper in the bowl of a food processor. Process until the dough just comes together and starts to form a ball.

Dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few times. Roll out to 1/8 inch thick with a floured rolling pin, wrap in waxed paper and refrigerate for about an hour.

Cut 1” rounds out of the dough with a floured cutter and transfer the rounds to the parchment-lined baking sheet. Using the back of a round half-teaspoon measure or your knuckle, make an indentation in the top of each dough round. Spoon about ¼ teaspoon of fig preserves into each indentation, using your finger to push the preserves as best as possible into the indentations.

Bake the savories for 10 – 14 minutes, until the preserves are bubbling and the pastry is light golden on the bottom. Let cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool. You can make these a day ahead and keep them in two layers separated by waxed paper in an airtight container.

Garden Cocktails: End of Summer

Leaving summer behind is always a little bittersweet, but apples are making their way into the farmer’s markets and this refreshing cocktail lets us hold on to our sweet summer months while looking into the face of autumn.

END OF SUMMER
Makes 1 cocktail

Ingredients

• 1 1⁄2 oz. Karlsson vodka, or other potato vodka
• 2 oz. fresh apple cider
• Dash simple syrup
• Pinch of celery salt
• 3 dashes celery bitters
• Juice of one lime

Instructions:
Combine all ingredients over ice, shake and strain into a rocks glass over ice. Garnish with a celery salt rim.

Photo Credit:

Creative Commons, 20141109-OC-LSC-0011 by U.S. Department of Agriculture, is licensed under CC by 2.0
Creative Commons, celery salt by Jax House, is licensed under CC by 2.0