Blueberry Compote

recipe & image from Frugal Mom Eh

Stabilized Whipped Cream

image from Food Pusher

Fresh Peach Dessert

I’m wrapping up what will probably be my final box of peaches for the season.  This latest box was the best yet.  These peaches are enormous!  They look almost more like mini pumpkins than peaches!  We’ve already had this fresh peach dessert a couple times this year, but the kids wanted to have it just one last time before the peaches were all gone. 

recipe adapted* from and image courtesy My Favorite Things To Eat

*I reduced the sugar in the crust portion of the original recipe.  I thought it was too sweet, and I prefer for the natural sweetness of the peaches to shine through. 

Peach Pie

This pie.  So delicious.  It is one of my favorite recipes to make during that late summer into early fall produce extravaganza.  

image courtesy Two Peas And Their Pod

I used to always use the Marie Callendar’s deep dish frozen pie crust to make this pie.  It is excellent this way.  Now that I’ve mastered the homemade pie crust, though, I have of course been using that recipe.  I am proud to say my crust is every bit as delicious and flaky as Marie’s, but without all the extra preservatives in hers! 

Peach Cobbler

This is my favorite time of the year.  I love the welcome relief of the changing temperatures and the stunning beauty of the changing leaves, but the main reason I love this time of year is the abundant FALL PRODUCE!  Tomatoes, cukes, zucchini, peppers, and – probably my favorite of all! – peaches.  I bought a case of peaches last week and made peach freezer jam out of them at 4 am one morning before the kids got up for school.  Then, when they got up, they got mad at me because I had used up all the peaches!  So I bought another case for them, just for baking, snacking, and freezing.  Last night, Messy Girl and I made this peach cobbler.  I love how easy it is and how it crisps up on top so nicely. 

image courtesy Magnolia Days

Next up, a peach pie for Messy Boy. 

I’m hoping I can bust through this case and work in one more case before they’re all gone.  I’m a glutton like that.  Blame it on fall produce!

Fresh Strawberry Pie

I found strawberries on sale at the grocery store!  It’s not truly spring until I can pick up a pound of strawberries for under $2, and since I found them, we are welcoming spring with a slice of strawberry pie today.
photo courtesy: http://www.gratefulprayerthankfulheart.com/2011/04/strawberry-pie.html

It’s a goal of mine to one day learn how to make a perfect, buttery, flaky pie crust.  But it’s gonna have to be dang good to beat the Marie Callendar’s deep dish crusts that I buy at the store in the meantime.  Pie crust is hard to get perfect and takes some time.  These pie crusts are one item I splurge on occasionally because they make baking the perfect pie so much easier!

The original recipe for this pie called for double the cream cheese layer and double the sugar in the Jello mixture.  It was way too sweet for us, so I modified the recipe to suit our own tastes. Cutting back the sugar makes the fresh strawberry flavor the star of the show.  So bright and fruity!