Tribeca Yummy Mummy

When I was thinking about what to make for this past Saturday’s greenmarket demo, I knew that it should be a dessert with peaches and berries. They are just so luscious right now. Being a Georgia-born girl, finding that perfect peach occupies an excessive amount of my summertime- it should be sweet, juicy, but with that little acidic bite right at the end. A mealy-mouthed peach is just too much for me to bear.

My second thought was of that camp stove they hook me up with over at the Tribeca Greenmarket. How do you bake on one of those? Should I dare? And, it being prime time for camping out, could I make something truly delicious that somebody could cook out under the stars with just a tiny propane stove on which to work?

This past Saturday, when I debuted my Blueberry Peach Pan Cobbler with Granola Crunch, served with local vanilla ice cream and fresh mint, I could barely scoop it into the tasting cups fast enough. We even ran out of spoons at one point, and while Danielle, the market manager, ran to get more, passersby chose to gulp it down rather than wait a minute for a utensil.

Part of this cobbler’s success is definitely attributed to the granola the gave heightened its flavor and added a needed little crunch. My cobbler was made with my homemade Apple Ginger Granola, but you can use the store-boughten (apparently those peaches put me in a Southern state of mind/vocabulary) variety if that seems like an awful lot of fuss. Swap out fruits as they come in and out of season. Plums and raspberries, for instance, would be yummy here. Or Concord grapes when they come in a little later on in the season.

Blueberry-Peach Pan Cobbler with Granola Crunch

• 6 T. unsalted butter
• 1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 c. oat flour*
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 2 t. baking powder
• small pinch of salt
• 1 heaping t. vanilla
• 3/4 c. granola
• 3/4 c. milk
• 1 1/2 c. blueberries
• 1 1/2 c. peaches, cut into 1-inch chunks
• optional: ice cream and fresh mint, for topping

1. Big Person: In a 9-inch cast iron skillet, melt the butter over a medium-low flame till just slightly browned and very fragrant.
2. Together: While the butter is melting, have your mini-chef whisk together the flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a medium bowl. Add the milk, vanilla, and (Big Person!) the warm melted butter, and beat the mixture with a wooden spoon until smooth.
3. Fold in half of the granola.
4. In that same skillet in which you melted the butter, pour in the batter, first, and then the fruits. Sprinkle the top with the remaining granola.
5. Cover the skillet with a tight fitting lid and cook over a low flame until the batter sets, 45-50 minutes. Resist any urge to peek! Let the cobbler cook over that low flame for a full 50 minutes. If you are camping or only have a stovetop available, cook another 5 minutes. If you have an oven available to you, place the pan under the broiler for a couple of minutes, just to brown the top. Serve warm, preferably topped with ice cream and sprig of fresh mint.

Note: To make oat flour, place a cup of old-fashioned rolled oats in a food processor with the blade attachment. Other flours may be substituted here, including spelt, whole wheat pastry, and all purpose flours.

Ok, here they are! The double scoop I made as part of the Ice Cream Social Sew-along. Two little Oliver + S Ice Cream blouses (View C) for my beautiful nieces. I am hoping that their mamas will take pictures of them running around in them so that we can have (even) more cuteness around here.

In the South, where I grew up, iced tea- sweet tea- is literally imbibed like water. While we hardly ever put sweetener in our tea around here, there are times when I miss that almost cloyingly sugary drink of Georgia, served up by friends’ families and any restaurant you might find yourself.

At our family gatherings, however, since my Grandmother was a total health food enthusiast way before it was in style, there was not any sweet tea gracing our table. Instead, my Aunt Holly made pitchers of this incredible Grasshopper tea that we all gulped down happily.

I remember my mom declaring on the way home from an Easter supper or 4th July picnic, “That Holly makes the BEST grasshopper tea!”

And this was after my aunt had cooked up her usual sumptuous food for the actual meal. Still, that tea loomed in my mother’s, and often my, mind.

It is absolutely clear to me why. The tea is just so good on a hot day, something we’ve had a wealth of this summer in New York. It speaks to me of running around outside, sipping from Mason jars, and the touch of powerful sunshine. It revives you when you are wilting and gives you a little boost to go and play just one more round of hide-and-seek… or now, a few years later, catch up on your sewing.

Here is the slow progress I have made since Sunday with my Ice Cream Social garments. All I have to say is that View C, the blouse, seems to be just made for these lazy days. Sewing along, at the pace of a Southern drawl, feels just right. So does this little jar of Grasshopper tea, my assistant.

A note on the tea: This is my own imagining of my aunt’s tea. Holly Perrow owns a catering company called Pope’s Creek Catering down in Fredricksburg, VA. If you are lucky enough to be served her cooking, you might request some of the original Grasshopper to wash it down. I promise that it will not disappoint.

Grasshopper Tea

• 2-3 black tea bags (not traditional, we use peach-ginger) or 3 T. black tea
• one very large bunch of mint (3-4 cups), washed well, reserve a few leaves for garnish
• 2 lemons, optional: an extra lemon thinly sliced for serving
• agave, sugar, honey, or simple syrup, to taste

1. With your mini-chef, squeeze the juice from the two lemons into a glass or ceramic pitcher. Fish out any seeds that make their way in. Now have your Yummy stick the whole bunch of mint down into the pitcher, with leaves down and stems up. Toss in the tea bags.
2. Big Person: Fill your kettle or a pot with about 4-5 cups water and bring to a boil. Pour the boiling water into the pitcher. Add any sweetener that you’d like at this point. Brew for 10 minutes, take the tea bags out with some tongs, and then let the mint steep for another 15-30 minutes. Take the mint out of the pitcher and discard. Allow the tea blend to come to room temperature before pouring it into any sort of plastic container. You can refrigerate the pitcher immediately if you prefer.
3. Now you have a Grasshopper tea concentrate. Add cold water to taste, depending on how strong you like your tea. Float some of the extra mint leaves in each glass and/or garnish with a lemon slice. Sit back, relax, and sip.

Since this is apparently Girly Girl Birthday Week over here at TYM, I would like to share some special news: our girl turned 5!