fruit

Peach Melba: Peachy Perfect

Peach season is nearly done.  I have enjoyed excellent cobbler, spectacular peach tartlets and whole peaches au natural, the peach fuzz is full of fiber!  One more easy peach recipe for you: one with no cooking.  A recipe for a company dessert with next to no work, that sounds about perfect for my busy life.  raspberry-jam-014

Your success depends on the quality of the three ingredients. Yes, just three so they better be the best you can find!  I like peaches direct from the orchard, the best quality raspberry jam you can afford (homemade jam is the bomb for this recipe!) and excellent vanilla ice cream; I prefer Turkey Hill handmade vanilla. I got my pturkey-hill-vanilla-ice-creameaches at Bechdolt’s Orchard. Perfect full peachy flavor. Yessss.

I made raspberry jam this week; we picked raspberries at a pick your own farm in NJ.  Cooked down with sugar and pectin to give me 4 half pints and a quarter pint.  The flavor is intensely raspberry.  I highly recommend making your own jam for this recipe; it makes the flavor spectacular. raspberry jam 013.JPG

This post is about Peach Melba, created by that world renowned French chef Escoffier in honor of an Australian opera singer, Nellie Melba back in the early 1890’s.  If you look it up on line you can find fancy versions in stemmed glassware using a whole peach.  It is old school but truthfully the classics never go out of style. The flavors are just perfect together with next to no effort on your part.

My version of peach melba is very rustic; in a desert bowl, no stemmed foot ware, no six dollar a pint ice cream, but delightful.  A friend of mine wanted something special for company dessert, no baking, no gluten and fruit based.  I gave her this recipe and it was a huge hit.  Even a non-cook can put this beauty together in less then 10 minutes.

Peach Melba

(quantity per person)

One perfect ripe peach

One-two scoops vanilla ice cream

1 Tbps. raspberry jam, stirred up until it is semi-liquid

Directions:

Heat a pot of hot tap water just deep enough to immerse your peaches, bring it to a boil.  Gently drop in the peaches, turn heat down to medium and simmer for 3 minutes, remove with a slotted spoon.  Cool enough to be able to peel.  Peel the fruit, cut in half and remove the pit.

Place the peach halves in a dessert cup.  Top with 1-2 scoops of high quality vanilla ice cream and then drizzle the raspberry jam over the peaches and ice cream.  That’s all there is to peach melba.  Takes like 5 minutes to put together.  You can gild the lily with slivers of almonds but I prefer it with no additions.  The peaches and raspberries play off each other perfectly and the vanilla ice cream is the ideal base for them to be showcased with.  Enjoy this naturally gluten free treat before all the good peaches are gone!

Originally posted September 2015, with minor revisions.

Fruit & Veggie Bars: Refreshing

 

Hot, yeap it is July and it is HOT in Pennsylvania and most of the USA.  Sometimes a chilly treat is in order.  I found these fruit and veggie pops in my grocery store; made by Outside, part of Nestle.  Not a lot to them, mostly fruit and veggie puree or juice reconstituted from concentrate, some sugar, not much else.  Flavors are Strawberry rhubarb, Tangerine medley and Blueberry medley. They have from 34 to 40 calories and from 5-15 mg of sodium.  The ingredients vary so the amount of vitamins varies too from 4-20 percent of daily need for vitamin A, 15% of vitamin C and the tangerine has 10 % of your daily vitamin K.  There is a small amount of fiber; 2-3% of daily requirement. 9 g of sugar.  Not much else in there: no fat or cholesterol. The juice/puree includes: apple, pear, strawberry, rhubarb, blueberry, pear, tangerine, sweet potato, pumpkin, passion fruit, carrot, beet, lemon and raspberry.

fruit and veggie bars

I find them refreshing, light, and vastly better than a sugary fruit pop that often contains minimal fruit juice.  They are not too sweet but not sour either. Not really tasting like any vegetables.  The puree doesn’t taste thick or heavy; blends in perfectly.  Adds a slightly different flavor to the fruit. Guilt free in my book.  Twelve to a box for about $4 which is a great deal to my thinking.  They also have a version that is just fruit; no veggies.  Bet they are tasty too! fruit bars