Weekly Dish

What to do when torn between two fruits, ripe and ready for the picking the very same Saturday? Have them both, of course! Throw them together with long, tangy strips of citrus zest, a faint sprinkle of fresh nutmeg, and a bit of brown sugar. Bury them beneath a cloud of butter, oats, and sugar, and bake until the aroma of summer seeps into the sunny corners of your kitchen. Serve warm with coffee, and, if you need a spot of cool, a dollop of vanilla ice cream. I’ll take mine straight, thank you–straight from the bush/tree to my oven and then my mouth, adorned only with fresh slices of peach and a couple of raw berries.

Peaches and blueberries: simultaneously ripe for a reason.

Peach Berry Crisp

About 10 ripe peaches, pitted, peeled, and sliced
Zest of 1 orange
Zest of 1 lemon
1 pint fresh blueberries
1/8 t. grated fresh nutmeg (optional)
3/4 cup brown sugar, divided
1 1/2 cups + 2 T. flour
1/4 t. salt
1 cup sugar
1 cup quick-cooking oats
2 sticks butter, cut into small cubes

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cover completely the bottom of a 9×12 pyrex dish with peach slices (10 medium- to small-sized peaches were enough for me). Sprinkle with the citrus zest (I like it in long strips for this dish, but grated works too), 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2 T. of flour, and the grated nutmeg. Add the berries and mix gently together until well-combined (I use my hands.) Make sure that the fruit mixure is in an even layer.

For the topping, you can use a food processor or a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. Stir together 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 cup white sugar, salt, and oats. With the mixer (or processor) running, add the cubes of butter until small, coarse crumbles form. Spread this mixture evenly over the top of the fruit. Bake for about an hour; the filling will bubble at the edges, and the top should be light brown and crisp (thus, the name!).

Adapted from The Barefoot Contessa’s Peach and Raspberry Crisp.

This dessert is my contribution to Sweetnicks‘ ARF/5-a-day Tuesdays: blueberries are packed with anti-oxidants, among other fantastic health benefits (which somehow diminishes the amount of butter in this crisp in my mind…)

Posted: Tuesday, June 27th, 2006 at 4:57 pm Filed under: Something Sweet, Comfort Food, Summer, Fruit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.