Peach Pie

I have wanted to make this lattice-top pie for years. The lattice top is a little more time-consuming and I do all of my cooking at a fast pace, so making time for a pie was not at the top of the list. As I watered the garden, I noticed there were some flowers that were perfect for what I had planned to do with this pie, so I made the time to get this done. 

Peach Pie

Makes a 9-inch pie

Ingredients:

2 pounds of fresh ripe peaches, peeled, sliced, and chopped

1/2 cup sugar

pinch of nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon fresh squeezed lemon juice

1/3 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup flour

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 Pillsbury pie crust (or recipe for double crust pie)

1 tablespoon butter

1-2 teaspoons sugar, for sprinkling on top of pie

Egg wash

1 egg white plus 1 tablespoon water, beaten with fork 

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425°F (220°C)

Cut the peaches and place in a large bowl with sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon, salt, flour, and cornstarch. Stir and lightly coat the fruit with all these ingredients.

Place the room temperature pie crust into the pie plate and pierce the bottom with fork tines. 

Spoon the pie filling into the bottom pie crust in the pie pan. Dot the top of the fruit with little pieces of the butter. With the remaining pie dough, I laid it out on a pastry cloth and cut my lattice pieces. Lay the lattice top as the pattern shows. weaving the pieces over and under as is customary with this type of pie. when finished, I used the remaining dough or another pie crust from another box of Pillsbury pie crust and placed the dough strips into a pie crust mold to make the woven edge. Use a small ramekin with warm water and take your finger dipped in the water to seal the woven edge over the edge of the pie without crushing the design. 

Bake for 20 minutes at 425°F. I also put a pie crust guard on the edge at this time (It can be made with aluminum foil). Reduce heat to 375°F (190°C) and bake for 25 minutes more.

When that time is up, take the pie out and sprinkle the top with sugar. Take the pie crust guard off at this time and continue baking at 350°F for 5-10 minutes more. When you see the filling is bubbling between the lattice top, it is done. Remove pie and place on cooling rack to rest for at least and hour or more before serving. I take the flowers off and serve with whipped topping.

Recipe adapted from : Art of the Pie by Kate McDermott

Flowers used were: roses, pansies, zinnias, statice, and Veronica. 

Pie crust mold and pie crust cutting tool.

Enjoy!

In Victory,

Sherry

The Shortening Days

The days are now getting shorter in the Northern Hemisphere. Can you feel it? You know summer is just weeks away from ending.

And yet, the baby birds are still slumbering in my garden. Yet another sparrow has made an eye-level nest at the top of a tomato.

There is still so much beauty everywhere, and yet I know it is going to change soon.

“Just ask the animals, and they will teach you.
    Ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you.
 Speak to the earth, and it will instruct you.
    Let the fish in the sea speak to you.
 For they all know...

Job 12:7-9

In Victory, 
Sherry

Orange Marmalade with a Breadmaker

There are two more jams I made this summer with the bread maker, one being this orange marmalade. I have a family member that loves this marmalade, so I found some beautiful oranges on sale and went to work. I did not realize that oranges are in season right now. I was thinking they were more of a late fall crop, but they are in season and plentiful right now in the stores.

Orange Marmalade in the Breadmaker

servings: 20 ounces

1 1/2 pounds of oranges (organic if possible)

1 1/2 cup of granular sugar

3 tablespoons of pectin

1 teaspoon of butter (optional)

Instructions:

Wash your oranges and dry. Cut them in halve and juice them with a juicer. Remove as much of the pulp as you can without any pith. Cut the orange skin into thin strips of about 1/5th inch. Place the orange juice with pulp, the orange peel strips, sugar, pectin and, butter into the bread machine pan. Select the "Jam" cycle and hit sart. It takes about 1 hour 20 minutes. Once jam is done, let cool in pan for one hour and then transfer to sterilized jars, or preferred storage container. The jam stores in the refrigerator 3 weeks and in the freezer for one year.

*I have a Hamilton Beach  breadmaker.

Recipe adapted from: culinaryshades.com 

I went in search of ways to use my marmalade once I had preserved it, and I found a recipe for a Marmalade Pound Cake, which turned out delicious! Ten years ago on this blog I also made an orange marmalade cake, here is the link.

This cake came from Marisa McClellan, who wrote Food in Jars. I believe I got the recipe out of The Food in Jars Kitchen: 140 Ways to Cook, Bake, Plate, and Share Your Homemade Pantry. This recipe used the marmalade in the cake and the glaze. She had some great recipes for using preserved food in this cookbook! 

Enjoy!

In Victory,

Sherry

Garden Success

I have really liked mixing the beds this year with multiple plants. It seems to work with the natural order instead of against it.

I planted mostly native plants this year, and it was a definite win. More pollinators for sure!  

I have tried growing the Queen Anne's lace plants that are made for gardening, but I have a problem with the biting black bugs that love to spend time on them, so my new replacement plant has become oryla, and it was perfect! 

Sweet peas are a favorite, but we bolt to hot weather so fast here in my climate that it might not be worth it to grow them. They really are pretty though and smell great, even if they succumb to the heat in June.

I discovered you can just throw sweet alyssum seed in the garden about the same time you plant peas, and they grow without a fuss.

Cosmos, always a favorite, but I like the shorter varieties.

Major excitement over these strawflowers; they were stunning. 

Johnny's Ballerina zinnias with some volunteer zinnias; they were very pretty, and I was a fan.

Of all my roses, this Lady of Shallot has been performing well.

I continue to have good results with the Bubblegum petunias in my raised planters.

The pollinators have been very comfortable in my garden this year.

The Pelargonium continues to like the backyard with a little afternoon shade. Geraniums...I think it is funny to call them by their scientific name, like the British do.

We have had several more bird nests. This is a cardinal's nest.

We had to get up high and get a picture of the eggs to identify them, and then we saw the mother and father cardinal tending the nest.

We just love our beautiful butterflies. I do as much as I can to give them habitat.

These are some of my favorite garden successes this year. I have been emphasizing native habitat over obsessing about weed control. Sometimes the weeds get ahead of me, and then I pull them and take note if any beneficial insects are living there! The chipmunks are very happy with my yard too. They are hard to spot because they are very quick, but the 45-degree angle they hold their tail at when they are scampering about gives them away. I saw one this morning and thought it was a butterfly at the top of the fence, and I watched for a few more seconds and realized with that give away angle they hold their tails, it was a chipmunk.  

In Victory,

Sherry

Mixed Berry Jam in Breadmaker

If you have ever tried a Marie Callender's Razzelberry Pie, that is what this jam tastes like. It is one of my family's favorite pies. You could vary the berries depending on what you have on hand, but this is my favorite combination of berries. This is also one of my family's favorite ways to eat said berries, on ice cream.

Mixed Berry Jam in Breadmaker

Yields: 6 cups

2 cups raspberries

2 cups strawberries

2 cups of blueberries

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon butter

1 1/2 tablespoons fruit pectin 

In a large mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients. Pour into bread pan. Start breadmaker. Place your breadmaker on the jam function and start machine. This takes about 1 hour 20 minutes to cook and then let it cool for one hour in the bread pan on the counter. Then transfer into storage containers. Some of mine went into the fridge and some was frozen. Stores in the refrigerator 3 weeks and in the freezer for one year.

*I have a Hamilton Beach  breadmaker and I got the instructions out of the instruction manual that came with the machine.

Enjoy!

In Victory,

Sherry

 

Sunflower & Black Forest Dahlia

I had a volunteer sunflower come up, and it went perfectly with these Black Forest Ruby Dahlias I got from Baker Creek Seeds this year. 

I have had mixed results with dahlias in my climate, but these did really well.

The key to growing them seems to be where I place them in the yard. These had some bright morning and noonday sun but a little afternoon shade. This dahlia has to be my favorite dahlia I have ever grown from seed. 

I saved my sparrow's nest that came from my flowerpot. The babies happily made it to flight and took off with a watchful mother.

I continue to enjoy the flower shed, and I am often arranging.

Here is a Lady of Shallot rose with a miniature tea set I found at a thrift store for my granddaughter.

My favorite cosmos fell over during a storm, so I picked most of them and made a bouquet,

In Victory,

Sherry