Crumble Redux: White Peach White Wine Minis!

Just shy of a week ago, we were in Vermont holding hands on Church Street and bracing ourselves against a downpour. Today, Nolan and I helped his dad finish a more secure pen for the chickens. It's been a week of catch-up: making sure there is enough time for the dogs, answering emails, scheduling magazine shoots, making frozen pizzas for dinner because we ran out of anything else in the fridge.

It's one of those slow-quick weeks, where the rug is pulled out from under my numb feet. Where I didn't realize I hit the snooze on my alarm until it was already 9 in the morning. The only thing I've wanted to do this week is sit and sleep and play with the puppies. Instead, it was 4 loads of laundry and making lists of things I wish I could do more of.

I called my mother and we talked for half an hour. It wasn't on the list, but it was time well spent.

I'm hoping for change, growth, understanding. I'd pray for it, if i were the praying type. Instead, I drink a cup of coffee and remind myself to breathe. That it's okay to have a week ebb and that if I stretch out my hands and arms and fingers enough, maybe I'll float along the current a little more peacefully than I am used to. Let's hope so. 

But one cool night, I had the windows open and the dishes done and peaches going to mush, so I recreated my other crumble to serve us for what we wanted: something spiked and small and comforting. Something to get us through this week and looking forward to the weekends ahead where we have a little more energy and a little more time and a little more to do with our day than sit and worry around the house.

White Peach and White Wine Mini Crumbles

With the high level of brown sugar and the butter added into the fruit portion, the fruit gets covered in a bubbling caramel that is too delicious to not want seconds.

Ingredients for filling:

• 5 white peaches, chopped
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 TB butter, melted
• 2 TB white wine
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 TB cornstarch

Ingredients for topping:

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup quick cooking oats 
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup sliced almonds
• 6 TB unsalted butter, slightly softened

Recipe:

1. In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients for the filing
2. Allow to sit and macerate for 30 minutes
3. After 30 minutes has elapsed, grease 6 ramekins and preheat oven to 375*F
4. Spoon mixture into each prepared ramekin
5. Now, dump all topping ingredients into another bowl and, using clean hands, mix together
6. Continue mixing until all ingredients are fully incorporated and a crumbly dough forms
7. Pour directly on top of fruit and pat with down
8. Bake for 30 minutes or until top is browned and golden

Summer's Cobbler for those Most Nights

Tomorrow, we're off to Vermont; so that means that I have been cleaning out the fridge this week. We've eaten a sandwich for at least one meal a day for the last 10 days, and we're getting pretty creative now. Nolan's favorite is still straight-up MEAT with some balsamic.

The fun part of times like this are that you can be creative with desserts. Necessity is really the mother of invention when you have fruit that needs used up and want something homemade and sweet in the morning. For me, it's all about the ease of baking. I've gotten away from the complications of design and pomp--"fiddly" as they say on The Great British Bake-Off. Most nights, I wait until Nolan comes home at 9:00 from a 14 hour day at work and we sit at the kitchen counter and eat from the pan. Most nights, this is exactly the kind of dinner I want. Most nights, we're tired and we joke and take a shower and on those nights, maybe 4 times a week, we'll eat a bit of dessert before bed and fall asleep with the windows open and the lights off and the dogs snoring.

The crumble is a "most nights" kind of dessert. One that is comforting after a long day, when it's warm and hot from the oven; but also great to nibble at with coffee before work. It's the last of the small and bloody strawberries that we picked a couple weeks ago, and a couple old peaches milling about in a drawer. It's a tactile dessert and, to me, that makes me appreciate it more. I'm not so disconnected from it had I used a stand mixer and threw it all together. 

I can't give Nolan the world, even though I would like to, but I can make him food and most nights, I hope that's enough.

Summer Peach and Strawberry Crumble

You can really substitute any fruit here, but please adjust the cornstarch, sugar, and lemon to taste accordingly.

Ingredients:

• 2 cup strawberry, hulled and sliced
• 2 peaches, sliced
• 1 TB cornstarch (or a little more if fruit is very juicy)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 TB Grand Marnier
• 1/2 lemon juice (or a little more if fruit is very sweet)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup quick cooking oats 
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup sliced almonds
• 6 TB unsalted butter, slightly softened

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, mix together strawberries, peaches, cornstarch, white sugar, Grand Marnier, lemon juice, and salt
2. Allow to sit and macerate for 30 minutes 
3. Prepare a baking dish (either a pie pan or a small casserole) with butter or oil. Preheat oven to 375*F
4. Pour fruit mixture into your dish and distribute fruit evenly
5. Now, dump all remaining ingredients into another bowl and, using clean hands, mix together
6. Continue mixing until all ingredients are fully incorporated and a crumbly dough forms
7. Pour directly on top of fruit and pat with down
8. Bake for 30 minutes or until top is browned and golden

Oatmeal Skillet Cookie with Crumble Topping

I spend a lot of time by myself. I've read four books since we moved to Ligonier. We get to name our house this month and I have a list narrowed down. I make sure the dogs get fed, my work gets done. I hate folding laundry and I love when I smell the dirt and concrete in the air from a passing truck kicking up gravel.

I told Nolan we can't leave anytime soon. We can't move again. I showed off my house to my best friend, Carissa, when she was visiting last weekend. I called it ours instead of mine and that shift in a possessive pronoun echoed like a foreign chord in the dining room. I'm still not used to having it be ours, but I love the idea of it all the same.

I told him we can't leave until our dogs are ready and they may never be. They've moved too much, from California to Pennsylvania. Milo flew home with me when we thought we could start all over again. They need consistency, we owe it to them now.

And for me? Home was never a place, but has always been something to run away from. I would walk up a hill in front of my childhood home and see how far I could go before it got dark, before I got tired and scared. Before anyone would know I wasn't in my bedroom. Home has been invented over and over and over again. And each time I found myself awake in the night, I'd be anchored to the spot by the sounds from my window.

The frog in the creek bed. 

The lazy moths that hit the window.

The lost cricket from the woods and the only thing separating me and the coyotes was a chain link fence.

We moved back last year and bought a house. Things have changed and I go back to the theme of creating home through food. One that I can't run away from. And so here is a skillet cookie with butter and oatmeal and a crumble topping. It smells the way comfort does and tastes just as good as normalcy can. I make oatmeal for the dogs a lot; they've come to expect it. So this recipe, in the silliest way, feels like home for us, too.

Oatmeal Skillet Cookie with Crumble Topping

Ingredients for Skillet Cookie (inspired by one from The Food Network)

• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 6 TB shortening, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cup quick cooking oats
• 1/3 cup dried cherries

Directions for Skillet Cookie

1. Preheat oven to 350*F and prepare a cast iron skillet with oil and flour
2. In a mixing bowl, sift together flour, soda, cinnamon and salt
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together fats and sugar using the paddle attachment
4. Add eggs, one at a time, then vanilla
5. Turn mixer off and use a spatula to stir in your flour mixture
6. Finally, stir in oats and cherries
7. Turn out into your skillet and press down

Ingredients for Oatmeal Crumble

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cup quick cooking oats
• 2 TB maple syrup
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 TB candied ginger, diced

Directions for Oatmeal Crumble

1. Put all ingredients in a bowl and pinch with your hands until fats are incorporated wholly into the mixture
2. Pour over the top of your cookie
3. Bake entire dish for 1 hour, cover with aluminum foil (to prevent burning) and continue to bake for another 10-15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean
4. Enjoy with whipped cream for up to three days in an airtight container