Saturday Morning at the Market

Thanks so much to every one who stopped by to visit me this past Saturday at the South Shore Farmer's Market.  We had a beautiful (albeit) early morning in the park.  I am not a morning person, so the fact that I got there before some of the farmers were done setting up is something I am equal parts proud of and depressed by.

Having been an avid farmer's market shopper for three years now, I'm starting to get into the hang of what is going to be there when.  It's also helpful that I get an email from my CSA farmers around Tuesday of the week, and what they've got is a good indication of what's going to be available at the market.  Of course, none of that can account for the fact that - I suspect just to throw me off my game - nobody had garlic at the market this past Saturday.

I think that cooking at the farmer's market really exemplifies what's at the heart of locavore cooking.  It's nothing fancy, nothing flashy, nothing rehearsed.  I like to think of my cooking a lot like I think of my dancing.  For those of you who only know me from my blogging, I am also an American Tribal Style Belly Dancer (South Shore Market regulars: those are the belly dancers you see a few times a year!).  The thing that drew me to ATS Belly Dance was the fact that it is improvisational group dancing.  We always dance in groups, and nothing is choreographed.  You practice a lot with the women you dance with, you know your music well, and you learn the "vocabulary" of the dance, but when push comes to shove you just don't know what exactly is going to go down.  This, to me, is the joy of the dance.  You are in the moment, and 90% of the time you need to give that control away.  You know what should happen, and you can even influence it a little, but in the end you need to give that control away.  You are not in charge.  You have to trust those around you to take care of you, and you are responsible for taking care of them.  And when something goes wrong, you smile, forgive, and move on.  And you learn something new for next time.  And maybe, if you're really lucky, you get to create a new move!

This is how I feel about locavore cooking.  You learn the ingredients.  You learn how they should work.  You learn when they should be there.  But in the end, you need to work with what you have.  And maybe things don't turn out exactly how you want, but maybe they turn out better.  And maybe you end up with something even better than what you had intended.  In the end, that is what locavore cooking is about.  You need to let go and work with whatever is at the market.  In today's well stocked grocery store, you can get whatever you want whenever you want it.  That's great, but there's nothing to push you outside of your bubble.

I'm not saying I necessarily got pushed outside of my comfort zone at the market this past weekend.  While not having garlic is fairly traumatic to anyone of marginally Italian descent, "just leaving it out" probably isn't getting pushed outside of your bubble.  But I'm not talking about me right now, am I?  No.  I'm talking about you.  I'm saying that you should allow yourself to get pushed out of your bubble.  Because it's fun.  Because I promise that the bag of weird looking mushrooms that you pick up at the market is going to taste way better than whatever you "just have" to run to the grocery store for.  Because I bet you wouldn't have believed me before that peaches and corn make a good salad.  And because cooking (like dancing) should be fun.  

The recipes came out well.  My helpers Denise and Missie were amazing.  The plants that I strategically placed throughout the audience asked all the right questions at all the right times.  Okay, the gazpacho was a bit spicy, but I cooled everyone down with a little maple bacon ice cream so they have to forgive me, right?  Right.

Thanks again for coming out to see me.  And if you didn't, you can make it up to me next time!  I'll be dancing at the market this coming Saturday...


Corn and Peach Salad

• 4 cobs corn
• 1 lb peaches
• 1 small red onion
• mixed greens (preferably with edible flowers for decoration)
• 1 lime
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 jalapeno? 

Grill the corn for about 5 minutes on each side.  You're looking to get it charred and a little smokey, but you don't want to overcook the corn.  Meanwhile, slice or cube the peaches into bite sized chunks, and finely dice the red onion.  Once the corn is grilled, cut it off of the cob and combine with the peaches, onion, and mixed greens in a large bowl.  (Larger than the one I used!)  In a separate bowl, whisk together the juice of one lime, the olive oil,  and salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.  (You can also add a minced jalapeno into the dressing, but I accidentally threw this into the gazpacho - making it extra spicy!)  Pour the dressing over the salad, and toss gently again to combine.

This is a light, refreshing salad that would go well with any grilled meat in the summer.  You could also add some avocado, feta, or nuts (if you're into that sort of thing).  Another thing I thought of while walking the market after the demo was to flake some of the Rushing Waters smoked trout on top and make an entree salad. 

Grilled Vegetable "Gazpacho"

Yes, I know that gazpacho is made with raw vegetables.  Yes, I know gazpacho is traditionally thickened with bread.  This has neither of those things.  That's why it's "gazpacho."  Missie (who took the last of it home) named it "Ka-spacho." I don't care what you want to call it.  It's a refreshing summer meal or side, a good way to use up whatever vegetables you have lying around the house, and would make a damn fine Bloody Mary base.  

This is what I did at the market, but you can really feel free to throw in whatever other ingredients you have, or omit any that you don't.  (Garlic anyone?)

• 1 large zucchini (about 1 to 1.5 lbs), cut into large cubes
• 1 red onion,  quartered
• 1 jalapeno (or two depending on how you're feeling)
• 2 bell peppers - whatever color you're feeling
• A large handful of fresh herbs (if you find yourself thinking - wait, I didn't notice this at the market, you are very perceptive.  And also shhh!)
• 1 cucumber
• 2 (ish) lbs tomatoes, halved or quartered, depending on the size
• Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper

Combine first five ingredients, along with any additional vegetables you may have lying around your kitchen.   Toss with a drizzling of olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste.  Grill until just charred, but not soft or mushy.  If you want, at this point, you can remove the skins from the peppers, and the seeds from the jalapenos.  If the peppers are nicely charred, the skins should slip right off, but this step is not necessary.

While the first set of veggies is grilling, blend the cucumber until it is fully liquified.  Add the grilled vegetables, and blend again until thick.  The zucchini has a nice viscosity to it, and will thicken up the soup nicely, while the cucumber and the tomato thin it out.  In this case, the zucchini takes the place of the bread.

Toss the tomatoes in olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.  Grill for about 10 minutes, tossing occasionally.  You want the tomatoes to start to dry up slightly, and get a little charred on the outside, without drying up.

Once the tomatoes are warm and getting a little caramelized,  transfer them into the blender and puree. 

At this point, I like to combine the green portion and the tomato portion artistically.  You can stir them together, but I like how the layers look.  Depends on how fancy you're feeling that day.


Quark and Beet Dip

Easiest. Recipe. Ever.

Roast off 1.5 lbs of beets (the color's up to you) and allow to cool.  Put into a food processor, and process until smooth.  Combine with 1 8 oz container of quark from the Clock Shadow Creamery (your choice of flavor... try the maple, it's award winning!)  Add a dash of any spices you feel appropriate (cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, cayenne...?  Preferably not all four.), or maybe a bit of lemon zest, and stir to combine.  Serve as a dip with crusty bread, carrot or celery sticks, or crackers.

Maple Bacon Ice Cream
(Hahahahaha.  Nope.)

Send me a message to place your order ;)

Next up - what to do with the pile of zucchini and cherry tomatoes building up on my kitchen counter.  Got any tips for me, or anything you'd like to see me try?  Leave them in the comments.

Put Up or Shut Up Episode 5: Peaches

First off, is your name in this pitcher?

It should be!  If not, you've got three ways to enter, and the chance to be in the pitcher three times to win a bottle of Vodka or Whiskey:

1. Follow the blog here through Google Friend Connect or Networked Blogs
2. Like Home Grown, Homemade on Facebook
3. Follow Home Grown, Homemade on Twitter.

If you're keeping track, you'll know that I'm also giving out more entries on my whim.  Here's another:

What would you like to see as a Put Up or Shut Up episode?  Tomatoes are coming up next, but is there anything else?  Post it on Facebook or Twitter, and get a free entry.  Also, if I use your suggestion, I'll also send you a can!


Don't suggest peaches, though, because that's the topic of today's post and I'm not sharing!

Peach season is, sadly, pretty much over in Wisconsin.  It was a bad year for fruit.  An early spring followed by a late frost is bad for fruit trees.  They bloom, then the frost kills what's there and - guess what - they don't bloom again.  And they don't get any fruit.  And then you don't get any fruit.  And if you don't get any fruit for eating, you certainly don't get any fruit for canning.

That's true.  I can't lie, it's probably true.  Okay, I can lie, and generally pretty well, but that's not really the point here.  The point is you might not be able to get your hands on any peaches.

25 lbs of peaches in my sink.  That's how you know it's
going to be a good weekend!

But, on the other hand, you might.  You see, what that frost didn't kill has a tendency to be ugly.  And we're at the end of the season, so things are even uglier.  You go to your local farmer's market (not South Shore; the peach people there aren't coming back - I bought them out!), you find the peach stand, and you wait.  You go to them at the close of the market and you bargain.  They didn't sell those peaches.  They're not going to sell those peaches.  Those peaches will be bad by next week.  Those peaches are kinda bad already.  So, what do they want for them?  Don't be a jerk.  I got my canning peaches for $1.50 per pound, and that's only after making friends with the peach people all summer.  Did you notice that my main farmer's market dish featured peaches?  Yes, it was because I like peaches.  And, yes, it was because I like a peach salad.  But really, it was because I WANTED PEACHES!  I'm not above pandering to get produce!  (I'm not above pandering to get kitchen supplies either.  Williams-Sonoma?  Sur La Table?  Start a bidding war.  Start sending me stuff.  I will endorse the crap out of whoever woos me best!  I am easily bought with any of those pretty things pictured in the kitchen porn you send me every week!  I especially enjoy the really fancy, really expensive canning jars...) 

What was I talking about?

Right.  Peaches.  Maybe you can get some; maybe you can't.  If you can, here are a few recipes.  If you can't, the technique I've outlined works on other stuff too.  If you get to the market late, you can bargain.  If you are buying bulk, you can bargain.  If you go regularly and make friends, you just might get free stuff.  Make friends.  Talk to the farmers, find the farmers that you like the best, and then keep going back!  Talk to them each week.  Ask them what's good.  Ask them what's new.  Ask them what's weird.  Make sure they notice you are there regularly.  It can't hurt, and it really can help!  I've got some boys from Union Grove that I'm slightly in love with and that I visit every week.  Even if I don't need anything, I spend $3 and get 6 ears of corn.  This week, the conversation went a little like this (very paraphrased):

Me: Hi!
Farmer Boy: Hi!  We have some greens that we don't know what they are!
Me: What?
Farmer Boy? We don't know what they are.  Do you want some?
Me: Uhh.....
Other Farmer Boy: They're not poison.  I totally ate them and I'm not dead!  Here, put them in your bag!

And now I have free greens!

(A side note, because I feel it's important.  I say that I am slightly in love with some farmer boys.  That may be offensive because, after all, I am a married women.  I can't defend my stance, except to say that, when I learned and mocked the fact that they were "Hack Family Farms," the response was "yeah, it's a good thing I didn't grow up to be a writer!"  We then proceeded to have a hour long conversation about Star Trek.  So... yeah.  I am smitten.)

It's a little late for this advice, I know.  It's too late to get to know your farmer this year.  But maybe it's a good kick in the butt.  You didn't get any peaches this year?  Well get to know a peach farmer already!

If you can get your hands on some peaches, here are some recipes to try.  Both are from Put 'em Up!

Blanching and skinning peaches.

I would also recommend freezing some peach slices.  Peel them just like you would a tomato (pop them in some boiling water for 30 seconds, and then straight into ice water).  Frozen peaches are, in my opinion, best for winter peach pies!

Brandied Peaches:
(I am, after all, a good Wisconsin Girl!)

• 3 grams powdered vitamin C, or vitamin C tablets, crushed
• 3 quarts cold water
• 4 cups ice
• 10 lbs peaches
• 5 cups water
• 2 cups brandy
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cups honey
• 4 cinnamon sticks
• 8 cloves

In your second largest non-reactive pot, or a cooler, combine vitamin C, 3 quarts cold water, and ice.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Blanch the peaches in the boiling water, and transfer to the ice water, just as if you were removing the skin from tomatoes.  Peel off the skin, and return to the acid/ice bath to prevent browning.  Half or quarter the peaches, and pack into clean, hot, pint jars.

Bring the water, brandy, sugar, honey, and spices to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.  Remove from the heat and pour the syrup over the peaches to cover by 1/2 inch.  Leave 1/2 inch of headspace.

Process using the boiling water method for 30 minutes.  Turn off the heat, remove the canner lid, and let the jars rest in the water for 5 minutes.  Check seals, then store in a cool dark place for up to one year.

Ginger Peach Jam
 (A spicy treat in winter!  You can use less ginger if you're not a fan)

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon Pomona's Universal Pectin
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup bottled lemon juice
• 4 lbs peaches
• 2 tbsp freshly grated ginger
• 1 tbsp calcium water (included in the Pomona Box.)

Stir together the sugar and pectin in a small bowl and set aside.  Combine ht water and lemon juice in a large non-reactive pot.  Prepare an ice water bath in a large bowl.

Bring a second large pot of water to a boil.  Working in batches, blanch the fruit in the boiling water for 30 seconds to loosen the skin (just like tomatoes!)

Scoop the peaches out of the water and drop into ice water bath.  Peel, pit, and dice the peaches, adding them to the lemon water as you go.

Bring the peach mixture to a boil.  Add the ginger and simmer for 5 minutes.  Lightly mash about 1/4 of the mixture.  Stir in the sugar/pectin mixture and return to a boil.  Add the calcium water, stir,  and remove from the heat.

Fill half pint canning jars, leaving 1/4 inch of headspace.  Release any trapped air.  Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.  Turn off the heat, remove the canner lid, and let the jars rest in the water for 5 minutes.  Store in a dark place for up to one year.

At the Farmer's Market

Thank you to everyone who everyone who showed up at the South Shore Farmer's Market this morning for my cooking demo.  Also, thank you to those people who didn't show up - because I ran out of food near the end!

It was a good morning - which is unusual for me because I do not, as a general rule, enjoy the morning.  I am not one of those people who feels that the morning is this beautiful, amazing, peaceful time of day.  Wait, I retract that.  I believe all those things, I just prefer to enjoy that time under a pile of blankets with my eyes securely closed.  I've enjoyed a few sunrises, but they were all after a night out - on the way home to go to bed!

So, to wake up and get ready to cook at 6:30 is a bit much for me.  And that, considering I had been up late fretting about the whole to-do and how it would go.  Add to that the fact that I'm not supposed to have caffeine (it constricts your blood vessels, and mine are already constricted on their own) and I am on my own to be bright and cheery in the morning!

And so I did.  I dragged my butt out of bed, I prepped my supplies, and I went out to cook.

I feel like it went well.  It was lovely for being early - not too hot, not raining - and I had my farmers around me.  And I got my first opportunity to cook in front of people.  Fortunately, my belly dance classes have prepared me well.  Talking at a volume that will carry over a busy farmers market is about the same as talking over a class of music and ziling, but to be fair then all I have to say is "and a five, and a six, and a seven, and an eight."

My goal was to promote the farmers.  That is, after all, what I am here for most: to promote the farmers, to promote real food, and to promote people being less afraid to cook for themselves.  I feel like I did a good job of that.  Some of my favorite farmers were not there, which was sad because I would have like to share their meals with them.  In the end, they did the work.  How am I possibly to fail, when I am starting with something so good?

Hopefully I also brought a few new readers on board.  If I did, welcome!  I'm here to help you work a little more local into your life.  And also to rant about the food choices I see made around me.  I like bacon.  I like booze (more on that later).  And I like when I try something that surprises me.

As I said at my demo (if you were there) the trick to cooking from the farmer's market is to not be too set on a recipe.  If you find your recipe, write your list, and go to the market looking for exactly what you need, you're not going to be successful.  The market requires a little more flexibility.  I read a lot of recipes online, and I am highly annoyed by the reviews that read like this: "I tried this recipe and it was terrible.  I didn't have any heavy cream, so I substituted Kahlua.  I also didn't have any potatoes, so I substituted marshmallows.  The finished result was far too sweet.  Whoever wrote this recipe doesn't understand how to cook!"  Don't be that guy.  But at the same time, in order to cook from the farmer's market, you kind of need to be that guy.  But smarter.  It's about an understanding of how foods react, and what really can be substituted for what.  Kahlua can be substituted for cream - if it's dessert.  Potatoes can be replaced with, depending on the recipe, sweet potatoes, turnips, carrots, parsnips, and beets.  Depending on the recipe.  Cooking isn't like baking.  It's an art, not a science, and cooking from the farmer's market, or from a CSA, emphasizes that.  Whatta ya got?  What can you do?  If it doesn't work, keep it to yourself.  If it does, revel in your successes.

Here are my recipes from the farmer's market:

Peach and Basil Salad, with Saxony Cheese

• 2 lbs peaches, pitted, quartered, and those quarters cut in half
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup cubed Saxony Cheese or something Parmesan-y
• About 8 large basil leaves, thinly sliced
• Fresh ground pepper

Heat a grill to high heat.

Place the peaches in a large bowl.  Add the maple syrup, and gently stir to combine.  Over high heat, grill the peaches until warmed and slightly caramelized.  You can grill all the peaches, or you can leave a few ungrilled to create a variety of texture.

After about 5 minutes, remove the peaches from the grill and return to the bowl.  Allow to cool slightly.  Add cheese, basil, and a dash of freshly ground pepper.  Enjoy warm.

Zucchini "Pasta" with Lime Vinaigrette Dressing

I consider this recipe kind of a cheat, in that it's a good recipe base to alter.  Really, all you need is the zucchini, and in the summer that's pretty hard to get away from.  Don't have limes?  Use a high quality white wine, champagne, or white balsamic vinegar.  No tomatoes?  No problem!  Extra veggies?  Throw them in!  Top it with cheese or meat!  Looking for something more filling, add equal parts cooked spaghetti to the zucchini pasta.

One thing I meant to bring up at the market is that you do not need fancy tools to make this.  My sous-chef, Denise, has a mandolin, so we used it, but at home (where I don't have one: present idea!) I just use my box grater.  The pasta doesn't look quite as fancy, but it tastes just as good:

Zucchini "Pasta" cut on the mandolin.

Here is the recipe, as I served it at the market:

With the box grater, it's not quite as pretty...
but it's just as tasty!

• Lime Vinaigrette (This makes a HUGE batch.  While it saves well, you may want to cut it in half, or even quarter it)
• 1 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
•  zest of 2 limes (zest before you squeeze the juice!)
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 Thai chili pepper, minced
• 3/4 cups olive oil
• 2 tbsp garlic scapes, minced

• 1 large zucchini, cut into thin pasta like strips
• 2 ears of corn
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes, cut into bite sized pieces
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Combine vinaigrette ingredients and mix well.  I recommend making in a bottle or jar that you can close tightly, and then just shaking vigorously.   I also recommend making this dressing a few hours to the night before, to allow all the flavors to marry.

On a mandolin or box grater, create long strips of the zucchini and place in a large bowl.  With a sharp knife, cut the corn off of the cob and add to the zucchini.  Add the tomatoes and stir to combine.  Add enough dressing to coat the zucchini, but don't drown it - about 2 tbsp to a quarter cup is probably good, depending on the size of your zucchini.  Toss gently, and allow to sit for at least five minutes.  The acid in the dressing will start to break down the zucchini, and it should develop a texture more like cooked pasta.

Farmer's Market Breakfast Fajitas 

This is another really good cheater recipe.  You can basically take anything, put it on a corn tortilla, and call it a taco, fajita, or burrito.  Yes, these words do mean something, but if you actually get called out on it, just tell them you're taking artistic liberties.  Cooks are artists too!

The main recipe here is actually for the skirt steak itself:

Skirt Steak Fajita Marinade:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar 
• 1 tsp fresh ground pepper
• 2 tbsp garlic scapes
• 2 tbsp shallots
• 1 tsp buckwheat honey
• 1 tsp minced hot pepper (I used Thai Chilli because that's what I had)

Combine ingredients and mix well.  Place 2 lbs skirt steak into a freezer bag and pour in the marinade.  Seal up the bag, and give the whole thing a good massage to work the marinade into the steak.  Allow to marinate at least an hour, up to overnight.

Once you are ready to cook, heat a grill to high.  While you are waiting, prepare a double thickness of aluminum foil large enough to completely contain the steak.  Season the steak with salt and place on the grill.  Cook for about a minute and a half on each side, then transfer to the aluminum foil and wrap up tightly, sealing any ends to prevent heat from escaping.  Allow to sit for 10 to 15 minutes.  At this point, the steak is continuing to cook - it's not really resting.

Slice the steak very thinly against the grain, and serve with corn tortillas and whatever else you would like on your fajitas!

More Delicious Ice Cream

This recipe again came from having too much of something - in this case sour cream.  In trying to keep my food budget as manageable as possible,  I try as hard as possible to stay on top of the contents of my refrigerator and not let things go bad.  So what do you do when you have a full pint of sour cream that's going to expire in a week?

Probably make a chocolate cake.

The number one rule of ice cream, according to Alton Brown, is to only use the best, freshest ingredients.  I can't find that on the interwebs anywhere, but I'm confident I heard him say it one time.  The theory is, if I remember correctly, that the ice cream is just going to intensify the flavor of whatever you have, so it is not the time to use less than fresh eggs or heavy cream.  Also you don't really cook the custard that much when you make it, so if there were something funky going on, you wouldn't really be giving it the opportunity to cook out.

But sour cream...?  I've always wondered what to say is wrong with my old sour cream.  Is it too sour?  I mean, sour cream is just cream that has gone bad, right?  (I Googled a recipe for sour cream and came up with this.  Basically, you just mix some heavy cream with a little bit of sour cream or buttermilk and let it sit out for 24 hours.  Gross, but pretty much what I figured.)  Shouldn't old sour cream just be "sharp"?  Sour cream, cheddar, same difference right?

Anyway, this sour cream was not bad.  It was totally unopened, foil top still in place.  It smelt and tasted fine.  So I used it.  And the ice cream turned out fine.

Great, actually.  I was really surprised.  I kind of expected the ice cream to be thicker or creamier, but it was basically a normal ice cream.

Except it tasted like cream cheese frosting.

No idea why.  I didn't put any cream cheese in it - although now I'm thinking I could and that would be really good too...  But I love cream cheese frosting, so this was an awesome discovery for me.  This is a very easy ice cream recipe:

Sour Cream Ice Cream

• 2 cups half-and-half (L)
• 1 cup honey (L)
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• 8 large egg yolks (L)
• 2 cups (1 pint) sour cream (L)

Fill a large bowl half full with an ice bath.  Place a smaller, non-reactive, heat proof bowl into the first bowl, and set a fine mesh strainer on top.  You will want to have this ready at the end of these directions, and you will be busy up until that point, so just do it right away.

In a saucepan, combine half and half, 3/4 cup honey, and vanilla bean.  Heat over medium low heat until bubbles just start to form around the sides of the pan.  Remove the vanilla bean, and scrape the seeds into the half and half.  Meanwhile, whisk together egg yolks and remaining 1/4 cup honey.  Whisk about 1/4 of the warm milk into the eggs then add this mixture into the pan with the rest of the warm milk, whisking constantly.  Return to the heat and cook over moderately low heat until the custard coats the back of a spoon, again stirring constantly and making sure to scrape the bottom and sides of the pan.

Remove from heat and pour through the strainer into the non-reactive, heat proof bowl, resting in the ice bath.  Add the sour cream, and stir continuously until cooled.  Then, place plastic wrap directly on the top of the custard, and put into the refrigerator.  Chill at least several hours, preferably overnight, before freezing in your ice cream machine according to the machine's directions.

I made served this in two different ways.  The first was with a sour cream and rhubarb upside down cake.

Frankly, this cake pissed me off.  I made it because it used rhubarb and sour cream, which I seem to have a ton of.  And I found the same recipe in several places on the internet.  I'm pretty sure no one actually made the recipe before posting it, though, because it took TWICE AS LONG to cook than what the recipe said.  I don't have time for that.  My husband and I eat late as it is is, I don't have time to wait for cake to cool when it hasn't even come out of the oven by the time we're done with dinner!

And, as you can see from the picture, we didn't wait.  The cake was still hot, it fell apart when I tried to cut it, and it melted the heck out of my ice cream.

And it didn't even taste that great.  I am not going to post a recipe here.   I will come up with my own recipe for upside down rhubarb cake, and, once I have mastered it, I will share it with you and it will be awesome.

The second way I served the ice cream was with peaches.  I actually had intended to grill the peaches, but then it started to pour so I cooked them in a pan instead.  It actually worked out better, because I used maple syrup, and when the maple syrup poured over the ice cream it hardened and turned into delicious sticky candy.  I will be making that again and eating the crap out of it as soon as I get my braces off!

Maple Syrup Peaches

Serves 2 or 3

• 1/4 cup maple syrup - do NOT use the fake stuff.  Seriously.  Just make a different recipe (L)
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
• 1 tbsp minced candied ginger

• 3 peaches

Combine all ingredients except peaches in a small glass baking dish.  Cut peaches in half and remove the pit.  Place cut side down into pan, and refrigerate for an hour (or longer.  We just let them sit while we were eating dinner.)

Remove peaches from the pan, and pour syrup and all spices into a small frying pan, over medium low heat, and heat gently until bubbles just start to form, stirring with a rubber spatula.  Add the peaches, cut side down.  Cook, spooning the hot syrup over the tops of the peaches until the peaches are soft and warm throughout. 

Scoop two bowls of sour cream ice cream, place three peach halves on top of ice cream in each bowl, and pour remaining syrup over the top.  

Enjoy!