What I Really Eat: End of Summer Peach Compote

"What I really eat" are my Iron Chef meals. My pantry meals. Shit, my fridge is empty meals. The things that come out of necessity and lack of time. The ingredient list will usually be small and the execution usually simple. Something that is less of a recipe and more of a guideline. If something exceptionally awesome comes out of my Sunday night scramble, it will get posted as a “What I Really Eat” and probably be accompanied with a not-my-best photo.

It happens to the best of us. You get cocky. You take it for granted and you don’t realize that the last peach you ate, that last really great peach, was going to be the last great one of the season. If you had known, you probably would have savored it just a little bit more, made it last just a little bit longer. But alas, that is life.

I get it. You’re at the farmers’ market and you’re like: psh...it’s almost October? Whatever! Look at all these bins of peaches, they have to be good, right? WRONG. It’s now the time to play end of summer peach roulette. Could get a great one! Could get six really terrible ones.

As I bit into a farmers’ market peach the other night (one of half a dozen I had brazenly brought home), I came to the stark realization that summer might really be over, and therefore eating really great peaches along with it. My peach was mealy and chalky and tasteless. I swear I almost cried. Boyfriend looked over at me and said, “what’s wrong?”, as my shoulders fell and I probably looked like someone had just kicked the cat, and then I spit my bite of peach into the garbage with defeat.

There I was though, half a dozen deep in shitty end of summer peaches that nevertheless pained me to leave to the fruit flies. So I fell back on a mantra that has gotten me through many a questionable situation: When in doubt, make compote. 

Would cooking these mealy, lackluster things with a little bit of sugar and some lemon juice and maybe a cinnamon stick save them?

The answer was yes.

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End of Summer Peach Compote

Ingredients:

5 to 6 peaches, pitted, peeled and roughly chopped

¼ cup raw sugar or other sweetener (or to taste)

juice of half a lemon

one whole cinnamon stick (optional)

Directions:

In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring all ingredients to a light boil, stirring as needed. Lower heat to a simmer and let compote cook down, stirring occasionally for about 30 minutes or until fruit has cooked to desired consistency. Remove cinnamon stick to serve.

Compote freezes well, if you, like me, have an obsession with saving some summer for later. I plan to swirl it into yogurt with homemade granola (via dash and bella) for the rest of the week. It would be at home on toast or ice cream or waffles or pancakes as well. Just sayin.

Makes about 1 ½  cups of peach compote.

Sour Cherry Oat Crumble Muffins

I spent the first three weeks of sour cherry season walking right on by them. Part of it was the $12 a box price tag. The other part was that I had no clue what I would do with them, so I couldn’t justify the $12 a box price tag.

But I finally succumbed and doled out a hefty portion of my market budget for a quart or two. Coming out on the other side of it, though, I can say it was worth it. Also as the season has lingered on the price did come down a bit.

After the cherries themselves convinced me to make some compote out of them, I tasted it and was like I’m eating exactly what I love about cherry pie. Okay, I get it. I get what the big deal is. Then it was only a matter of figuring out what to put it in that wasn’t cherry pie. Because, as I’ve already embarrassingly admitted, I don’t really like pie. 

I know...I know.

So first, these popsicles happened. But I was left with a good amount of compote still to use. Which was not really a problem. I could have left well enough alone and just had a half pint jar of it in my fridge for a few weeks to come -- to swipe on toast or swirl into yogurt or top ice cream with. What I did though, was swirl it into some muffin batter and then covered that with a crumble, because, it just made sense at the time.

Barely sweet gluten free batter, swirled with puckery sour cherry compote, topped with buttery sweet oat crumble was definitely a good decision. Let me know if you think so too...

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Sour Cherry Oat Muffins

Adapted from this Canelle et Vanille recipe

Ingredients:

Oat Crumble:

1 cup old fashioned oats (gluten free if needed)

¼ cup coconut palm sugar (or brown sugar)

¼ cup coconut flour

pinch of salt

3 tablespoons butter

Muffins:

3 eggs

½ cup raw sugar

1 cup full fat greek or other yogurt

½ cup melted butter

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup brown rice flour

½ cup millet flour

2 tablespoons tapioca starch

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup cherry compote (recipe here)

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium sized bowl combine oats, coconut palm sugar, coconut flour, and salt. Cut the cold butter into the crumble mix and mush together with your fingers or a pastry cutter until butter is mixed into the oat mixture well. It should clump if you press it together in your hands. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar, yogurt, melted butter,  and extract to combine well. Add flours, tapioca starch, baking powder, and salt and whisk well to combine.

Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners. Fill each wrapper about three quarters of the way with batter. Next dollop about 1 tablespoon of cherry compote onto the batter of each muffin. Take a tooth pick or other type of skewer and artfully drag the compote throughout each muffin to create swirls.

Lastly sprinkle a little bit of oat crumble on top of each muffin.

Bake in oven for about 20 to 25 minutes until they are golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean.

Note: You might have oat crumble leftover if you don’t use it all on top of the muffins. Simply line a sheet pan with some parchment paper and spread the crumble out on it. Bake it in a 350 degree oven for about 10 to 15 minutes or until golden and toasty. Once cooled, place in an airtight container and use on yogurt or ice cream like you would a granola.

Makes 1 dozen muffins.

Sour Cherry Almond Yogurt Popsicles

I want to love pie. I really, truly, desperately do want to love pie.

I appreciate pie. I appreciate pie in the sense that I know how much blood, sweat, and tears usually go into making pie. That, and they are just so pretty. I love the aesthetics of pie. The crinkled edges, the handiwork of the lattice, the snappy looking sugary top. Give me a piece of pie and I will fawn over it like it just won the county prize at the fair.

Expect me to eat that prize winning slice and I will proceed to scoop out and only eat what’s inside the pie. So what I really love is the fruit. That warm, syrupy, drippy fruit.

So when faced with a quart or two of perfectly perfect bright red sour cherries and not even one inkling need to make pie, what’s a girl to do? Of course I only bought the cherries because what kind of seasonal blogger would I be if I didn’t. I had a stare down with my quart of cherries and eventually they convinced me to just throw them into a saucepan with some sugar and almond extract, because when in doubt, make compote.

Consequently I ended up with a bunch of warm, syrupy, drippy fruit which is exactly what I like. Those saucy cherries then talked me into swirling them into a couple things, including these yogurt popsicles, but none of them pie.

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Sour Cherry Almond Yogurt Popsicles

Ingredients:

Cherry compote:

1 quart sour cherries (approximately 2 pounds), pitted

⅓ cup raw sugar or other sweetener

juice of half a lemon

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 teaspoon tapioca starch (or cornstarch)

Yogurt Base:

1 cup plain greek yogurt

½ cup whole milk

2 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon almond extract

Almond crust (optional):

½ cup roughly chopped sliced lightly toasted almonds

Directions:

In a 2-quart saucepan over medium to low heat, bring cherries, raw sugar, and lemon juice to a simmer. Cook for about 25 minutes until cherries have broken down and released their juices. When they’ve reached the correct consistency, stir in the almond extract. Lastly scoop about a ¼ cup of juice from pot into a small dish. Whisk the starch into this juice and once combined quickly add back to the cherry pot. Stir well to incorporate. Once the juice has thickened into a syrup, remove from heat and let cool.

Once cooled, blitz briefly in a food processor or blender until mostly but not fully pureed. A few chunks of cherry are welcomed.

While the compote is cooling, get the yogurt base ready. In a large bowl, whisk yogurt, milk, honey and almond extract until smooth. Keep chilled until compote is cooled.

To assemble pops: pour about an inch of yogurt base into each of six pop molds. Next layer in one heaping tablespoon of cherry compote into each. Finish each with another layer of yogurt base, leaving about ¼ inch at the top of each mold to accommodate for expansion. Next take a popsicle stick and artfully drag the cherry compote through the yogurt mix of each popsicle mold. You should be able to create some pretty swirl action for each pop.

Get your popsicle mold ready for the freezer by placing on covers, adding popsicle sticks, etc.
 

Freeze for 4 to 5 hours or until fully frozen. Run under warm water to loosen.

If desired, let the pops begin to melt just slightly, and then roll in chopped almond slices to coat. Enjoy right away or return to freezer to be enjoyed at a later time.

Note: You will have compote leftover. I promise that having left over cherry compote is not a problem. I’ve been swirling it into plain yogurt for a sweet snack. Swiped on some toast, waffles, or pancakes would be great. I have no doubt that spooning it over vanilla ice cream would be divine. This cake would welcome the addition.

Makes six 8-ounce popsicles.

Strawberry Rhubarb Compote

This week got completely away from me. Completely. I got home from work late every night with not much more time to make anything but an egg and go straight to bed. Thus, my gorgeous last of the season strawberries had begun to wither away! This is not how I wanted to start this whole thing off. This whole blogging thing. It’ll be easy, I said. No problem, I said.

 Reality check. 

So to save my poor, poor, shriveling berries, tonight I chopped them up and threw them into a saucepan with some diced rhubarb I’d frozen. I cooked them away with some lemon zest and juice, some honey and vanilla. This all resulted in a decently respectable strawberry rhubarb compote. Schmear it on something toasty or drizzle it over ice cream, it’s good for all those things.

Strawberry Rhubarb Compote

2 cups extra ripe strawberries, chopped

1 cup rhubarb, chopped

Zest and juice of ½ a lemon

Splash of vanilla

4 tablespoons of honey

 Mix all indredients in a small saucepan over a low heat, stirring occasionally until broken down and thickly jammy. Seriously. That's it. I’d say it took mine about 40mins to get to my desired consistency.

It should last about two weeks in the refrigerator.