I wanted to tell you about all the vegetables I bought this weekend. All the zucchini, squash, and tomatoes which made up a delicious summer minestrone soup. . . and the enormous bunch of fresh basil and arugula which became a basil-arugula pesto that we devoured with a homemade Italian bread.
But, I can't.
Because, you see, I made something so much sweeter.
It was Saturday, and I convinced John- who is only mildly amused with the farmers market- to go shopping with me. The Del Ray market was crowded and we rushed around trying to get everything we needed quickly.
But, then these appeared at the Toigo Orchards booth:
Have you ever seen such a peach? Shaped like a donut, and appropriately named the donut peach, these cute little ones are similar to a white peach and very, very sweet.
I had to have them. But then, what to do with so many peaches besides - you know- just eating them?
Recently, I read a post on Orangette about this lovely apricot tart. The way she described her pie crust made it all sound so simple. All those fears I had- brought on by memories of my mother pounding the rolling pin across crumbly non-compliant crusts every apple season- just melted away as I read her simple instructions.
I got to work mixing together all the ingredients for the pie crust, molding it into a small disk wrapped in saran wrap, and then placing it in the freezer for two hours. Two hours gave me some time to think about those peaches.
At first, I thought I would just make a basic peach tart. It seemed simple enough to just toss the peaches in some lemon juice, sugar, and maybe a dash of cinnamon. But, as John would tell you, things are rarely that simple in my kitchen.
And sure enough, my friend Epicurious came along and convinced me otherwise with this recipe: a peach tart glazed with honey and toasted almonds, then served up with a dollop of mascarpone cream.
And despite my tendency towards multiple ingredients, I can assure you that this wasn't very difficult. The peaches were tossed with flour, sugar, and lemon peel. This mixture was poured into the frozen pie crust, drizzled with honey, then brushed with a combination of almonds and melted peach/raspberry preserves (my own homemade preserves).
Orangette's pie crust did not call for baking prior to putting the ingredients in, and it really did turn out very well. In retrospect, however, it may have been good to put the pie crust in alone for 5-10 minutes prior to assembling the other ingredients since the peach mixture was pretty watery.
The tart baked for 45 minutes at 375F. After it had cooled for fifteen minutes on the counter, we each ate a hearty slice topped with the mascarpone cream.
In case you missed it in the post, the pie crust recipe can be found here, and the peach filling recipe can be found here.
Now, can you blame me for having to tell you about this?
