A Few of My Favorite Things: The Best Cobbler In the World

A few summers ago, probably more than a few, I made my first peach cobbler. I used a recipe I found in one of my favorite and trusted cookbooks. I went by the book, as I do every time I try a recipe for the first time. It turned out well, and was easier than I thought.

A while later, perhaps the next summer, someone had left some sugar cookie dough in the fridge at our cottage. My mother didn't know what to do with it, as she knew that no one who was there at the time would want to eat the cookies from a store bought dough (some of my fam are kind of baking snobs since I like to bake from scratch a lot). I thought a minute, and then came up with something kind of fun. I used it as a topping for a peach cobbler. (By now I was happy to adjust and tweak the recipe to my liking.) It was a hit! Even those who snub the store bought dough liked it!

So, I got to thinking...what other types of toppings could I use on a cobbler? And what else could I put in with peaches? At one point, I saw a recipe for blueberry/peach cobbler, and at some other point (they all have smooshed in my head at this time) I decided to use a recipe I received from my husband's grandmother for molasses cookies as a topping, and combined them into the most wonderful cobbler recipe in the world! I have been making it ever since, every time the peaches and blueberries are looking ever so beautiful in the markets!

Because I made this recipe up, I had to come up with approximate measurements for an actual recipe. Before that, I didn't really measure anything except for by sight. So, if anything sounds like it could use a little more, or a little less for your own liking, feel free to tweak it to your pleasure.

Here we go!

First I make the molasses cookie dough. You can use your favorite recipe here if you have one. This is mine from "Grandma B" (of course, I tweaked it a bit).

1 1/2 cups melted butter

1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar

1/2 cup molasses

2 eggs

Sift together:

4 tsp baking soda

4 cups flour

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cloves

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

Add sugar, molasses and eggs to melted butter, mix well. Add sifted ingredients to wet mixture, blending well. Chill for 1 hour (can be overnight as well).

These are perfectly delish on their own, and I use any extra dough I have to make cookies! Roll into 1" balls and roll in sugar. Bake @350 degrees for 10 mins. These never last past the day I make them!

Now onward to the cobbler!

I make this when the peaches and blueberries look like this! I can't resist! They are gorgeous! That's when I know it's time...

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Peel and slice 8 to 10 peaches (the ones in the picture were huge, so I used 8 of them). Wash up 2 pints of those little blue beauties, and put them in a large bowl with the peaches.

Add the following into the fruit:

1/4 cup molasses

1/2 - 3/4 cup brown sugar (light or dark, whatever you like)

1 tsp. cinnamon

2-3 tbsp honey

3 tbsp maple syrup

(I use both honey and syrup if they are on hand, otherwise use whichever one you have, and make it about 4-6 tbsp total.)

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp flour (for thickening)

Butter the pans. Mix the fruit until all the ingredients are blended together. You'll know when the juices start to flow, as the sugar mixes into the fruit.

Pour the fruit into a 9" * 11" and about a 9" square pans. (So, yes, I make two pans for our large lake family.)

Next take the cookie dough from the fridge, and roll 2" balls. Flatten them into little patty shapes, and dip into sugar. Place each dough round on top of fruit, slightly overlapping each one on another.

Once covered completely with the dough, place in oven and bake for 35-40 minutes. Keep an eye out for bubbly juices, that's when it's done. It may drip in your oven, this is good for the dish, meaning it's deliciously juicy, but you can place a tray or pan on a level under your dishes if this bothers you.

You can serve this dish warm or cold, but everyone in my family seems to prefer it warmed with ice cream and or whipped cream.

It's such a pretty dish, makes the whole house smell like a piece of heaven, and it's not going to break your calorie count, as it's mostly fruit, with a little cookie! (Of course, that's not counting what you might want to put on top of it!)

Every time I make this, I get compliments galore! I hope you do too! Of course, if this is too much for you, feel free to cut the recipe right in half, and enjoy it for a smaller gathering! We just never have that problem in the summer time!

More of My Favorite Things

It happens.

I completely forgot to blog yesterday.

I am amazed I made it this far into blogging, before I forgot.

I tend to forget things easily.

Especially if life gets in the way.

Which happens a lot in the summer.

Summer is life.

It can get in the way all it likes.

It gets in the way, and I am glad.

Glad for the sun, the warmth, the greenery all around.

Glad for the lake, the cool, beautiful, fresh water.

Glad to sit by the water and catch up with family, friends and good books.

Loving fresh, locally grown produce.

Loving the many celebrations of life and love throughout the summer time.

Loving watching my children grow up next to their cousins, as I grew up next to mine.

I even love making sure there is time to do everything we want to do in the summer!

What do you look forward to in summer time?

What things do you love about summer?

I love life, so I love summer.

Summer is life.

A Few of My Favorite Things

I’m just an old fashioned girl, living in a new fangled world.

I love technology, always have. Anything that comes out advancing us as a people is magical genius to me.

I love the creature comforts. I love hot and cold running water, and I don’t really want to know where it’s coming from (although, having well water, I know all too much where it comes from). I love heat in winter and air conditioning in summer. I love flushing toilets and bubbling bathtubs. Glass top stoves and convection ovens. Industrial mixers and refrigerators. Even though it’s not PC, I love fur. I wouldn't kill for it, but I happen to have one from my grandmother’s closet, and I love it. That shiz is warm people! Don’t judge.

I love photography. I took my first photography class in high school, and I was in love. Technology and creativity in one beautiful media. I was hooked. I joined the yearbook photographer staff, and had a ball! In college, I became an art education major with a concentration in photography. This was the old school photography with chemicals, developing and darkrooms. I spent many hours in a dark room, and I loved every minute of it. There is nothing quite like bringing a vision in your mind to life on a page. Well, almost nothing.

Which brings me to my next love: baking. I would bake every day if I could. I considered opening my own bakery, at one point, a few years ago. The town I live in is a little small for that though, as was my pocket book. But I still love to bake. I bake cakes for my family’s birthdays, and cookies when the kids or hub requests them, or some banana bread when there are some lying around that are too ripe, or for a school function, or just because. I've been doing it since I was a kid, and I hope to do it ‘til I’m too old to care.

I love video games. Yep. I said it. I am a gamer! Space Invaders, Pole Position, Pac Man and Missile Command on the Atari, back in the day. Centipede in any arcade I ever went in. I stopped playing through high school and college for some weird reason. Later, my hub got me playing Sonic on the Sega. (If it sounds like I’m speaking a different language right about now, just bear with me.) I stuck with the simple games, while the hub went on to first person shooters on the Playstation. Using two joysticky things just to move around? That was ludicrous!

Pregnant with our third babe, I was getting a bit stir crazy during the day. I am at home all day, but the other kiddies were basically in school all day. Any woman can tell you, those last days, hours, minutes…are a life time! So, to stop myself from going nuts, my hub suggested I try his latest shooter with him: Resistance. It freaked me out! There were alien monster thingies jumping out everywhere, and shooting, and violence! Yet, I couldn't stop watching! Finally, I tried playing. I was horrible at first, but got the hang of it to at least be able to move around. That game is still one of my favorites. It opened up multiplayer gaming for me, and I haven’t looked back since! Again, for those of you unfamiliar with gaming, multiplayer is being able to play, online, with other peeps! Strangers, or friends, I have met many interesting people in gaming! But that is for another blog.

I love to sew. When I was in high school, I thought I would go into fashion. I love fashion design, the clothing, the fabrics. There was only one problem: I didn't know how to sew. Flash forward about eight years, and I am a new mom. When my first born was just a babe, my mother in law gave me my first sewing machine. I learned how to sew children’s clothing, and my love for fashion was reignited. I made cute girly clothes for my daughter, and then made them for other people’s babies. I loved it. The combination of creativity and calculation was, in my mind, the best.

That’s what I love the most. Using both sides of my brain to create something wonderful. It not only stimulates more of my mind at once, but to create something in the real world that started as just an idea, to me is the ultimate. (Aside from creating life itself, but that goes without saying.)

Let me know what things your brain likes!

To Vlog or Blog?

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the terms above:

Blogging - to write about something and share it on the internet.

Vlogging - to record about something and share it on the internet.

Which do you prefer? Or do you like both?

Recently I’ve become fascinated with the You Tube world. I even have my own channel. It is an exploding video media for teens and 20 somethings. There are vlogs, parodies, original hilarity, how to’s…you name it, you can probably find it there. It’s great fun when you have a few minutes to spare.

Unfortunately my few minutes tend to turn into a half a day or more!

I get caught up on one You Tuber and watch dozens of their videos! The funnier and more creative the better. I will also watch their vlogs. Often times a funny or entertainment channel will have a “second channel” for their more serious recordings. There they get a bit more real, a bit of their every day goings on.

I was going to use the term voyeurism here. Until I actually looked up the definition. It’s all sexual and stuff, so that’s not the word I’m looking for here (if that’s your thing, then all the power to you, but that’s not what I’m trying to address here).

Viewerism?

Watching these videos after a while feels like you know the person/people in them on a level totally different and way more personal than anything on television. It’s the next step in reality tv. It’s personal video. These teens and 20 somethings are becoming famous by being on You Tube. As famous as any television or movie celebrity. Now, they may not all have millions of followers. Not all, but some do. Many of them though, have hundreds of thousands of viewers and are making good money over there on You Tube. You see, you can get paid for original content on You Tube by how many hits (views), subscribers and clicks on your advertising you get. These “kids” are making their living by vlogging.

“Bravo,” I say to them! They’re doing something they love and making a living at it! Isn’t that the dream after all?

I get a kick out of it all. Technology. I love it.

Now blogging has been around since the dawn of the internet as well. People are using the internet to share, share, share! People blog about everything under the sun!

My favorite things to read are my daughter’s blog, of course; Fair Flying. She writes. It’s her life. It’s a part of her and it is amazing. Not just saying that because she is my daughter either. It’s really great stuff. (Their might be a little bias there, but hey…you’ll never know unless you check her out!)

My sister’s blog as well; The Whimsical Sweet. My sis blogs about her amazing life as a stay at home, home schooling, business owning mom. Never a dull moment or blog there.

I will pretty much read any friends’ blogs about nearly anything. I like to see what my friends have to share. I like anything funny, witty, touching, lesson teaching, baking or creating things blogs.

Mostly it’s about being entertained for me, with the occasional learning on the side. I am grateful for all the bloggers and vloggers out there. They’ve helped me learn many things, laugh and even shed a tear. So, thanks for sharing, you internet peeps! Keep it up, as I look forward to your next posts!