Summer

Early August is here and the close of peach season in my neck of the woods is drawing nigh. Thankfully 'maters and peas and other summer produce will take us into an Indian Summer and then, thankfully into fall!

I have two sets of iron skillets - one set for savory cooking and one set for sweets. There's hardly anything better than a good iron skillet, but there's hardly anything worse than a peach or apple or berry pie that tastes like onions and gravy! Trust this Farmer, keep a sweet skillet handy so you don't serve onion/gravy flavored peach pie at a dinner party!

Mimi was the source - of course - of any of my iron skillet prowess. She taught me about cooking with them, in them, seasoning them and even bringing a rusty one back to life. She told me that if the house caught on fire, grab the silver and family photos - the skillets will be just fine!

So here is one of my favorite pies in an iron skillet - peach! Followed closely by apple and bringing up the rear would be my pineapple upside cake. The iron gets so hot that the cake or pies cook quickly and give your crust some crunch and substance. Besides tasting absolutely divine, these desserts are beautifully presented in their skillet caches - one less dish to wash and allows for easy reheating!

Blueberries just might be my favorite summer berry. When I was growing up, I enjoyed the blueberry pies my grandma made. I've never been able to recreate that delicious pie. And, for that reason, I come up with all sorts of ways, other than in pie, to enjoy the plump blueberries of summer.

I think it was four summers ago, at about this time, that I went on my first camping/canoe trip at Lake of the Woods. A friend, who was also on the trip, sent me a recipe for a blueberry relish sometime before we were scheduled to take off. I made the relish for her and brought it to Laketrails Base Camp on Oak Island in Lake of the Woods in the Northwest Angle of Minnesota, our starting point. Our fellow paddlers enjoyed the savory blueberry topping with goat cheese on toasted slices of baguette as a start to our meal the night before the big adventure trip under a full moon. There were times on our week-long adventure that we wished we would have had more of that snack.

Cheese and tomatoes go together like, well, pizza.  But sometimes you don’t want all that bread.  Sometimes you want something satisfying, fresh, that’s hot and quick.  Insalata Caprese is great, but when I want something a bit more substantial and warm I make Scamorza Affumicata alla Griglia.  

Or grilled smoked mozzarella topped with seasoned cherry tomatoes.  It’s the easiest dinner ever.

Take a few cherry tomatoes, cut them in half and toss with good extra virgin olive oil, salt, the pepper of your choice (I love Aleppo pepper) and some oregano (I have a bunch of dried Sicilian oregano that I use by crumbling a bit into the bowl.

Blueberries are intense. Intense color that stains your mouth purple. Intense sweet and tangy juice so rich it almost tastes like wine. Unlike other fruit, such as apples, they don't even need vanilla or cinnamon to give them a boost. They are the boost. The intensity of blueberries make them a nice kind of accent to other dishes, like in a fruit salad or a salsa. They are also great as polka dots in pancakes and muffins but a little trickier in pie. Just too intense. That's why I love blueberry tarts.

When you pick a bucket full you end up with about four pounds, which is a lot of blueberries! I called my mom for a recipe for a blueberry tart. This particular one uses three cups of blueberries and combines them with a sour cream filling that bakes up like a custard. Plopping blueberries into a custardy base, a pastry cream or clafouti seems like the right way to handle them.

I am hopeless when it comes to pie crust. I just don't have the pie crust mojo. So I rely on recipes with graham cracker crusts, and press-in crusts. This recipe has a crust that is no fail. Really. I swear. I'm going to use it as my default pie crust from now on. My mom cut the recipe out of a newspaper over twenty years ago so I apologize for not being able to attribute it properly. I have simplified the instructions somewhat.