Peaches 'n' Cream

On our last day of vacation at Roan Mountain State Park, Sandy and I got together with Beth and Meredith who were staying a few cottages down from us.

At that point, we were trying to eat up the perishables. (We'd stocked up for a long visit, then added lots of fruits and vegetables as we drove through North Carolina and into Tennessee.)  The other stuff wew could bring back in boxes or the cooler.

We had a small basket of peaches that was looking forlorn.  I hated the idea of throwing them away, but couldn't see just eating them.

They became dessert:  Peaches Foster.  This dessert is inspired by the divine bananas Foster, which I'd first tried at Brennan's Restaurant in New Orleans years ago, and made a number of times from their cookbook.

So off to the store it was, for vanilla ice cream and brown sugar.  I forgot about the cinnamon until I was making the peaches;  it turned out great, though next time, I'll sprinkle on a bit.

First I poached the peaches in boiling water, so that I could peel them. Then, I cut them in half and removed the pits (buy freestone peaches if you want to save yourself a world of heartache), and quartered each half into wedges.  Since I was prepping the food ahead of time, I squeezed a lime over the peaches to keep them from turning brown, and covered them with plastic wrap and returned them to the fridge.  There were about four cups of peaches for four of us.

When it was time for dessert, I melted a half stick of butter over medium heat and added a few heaping tablespoonsful of brown sugar (about a cup).

When that was bubbling, I added the peaches, and cooked them until they were limp, about five minutes.  I then added about 1/2 cup of Jamaica rum.  After a few seconds, I lit a kitchen match and ignited the peaches. 

They made a beautiful sight, and no, I didn't burn down the cabin.  If I had, I wouldn't be sharing this recipe with you.  The photo is of the peaches flaming.  After I got the shot, I was so busy scooping ice cream and spooning hot peaches over it that I forgot to take a picture of the peaches Foster themselves.  Guess I'll have to make it again soon to rectify that.

Note:  I winged it on the amounts in the recipe, since I didn't actually measure anything.  The amounts I gave were from the bananas Foster recipe, and were quite close to what I used.  We didn't have any cinnamon or liqueur, though I imagine adding cinnamon and some peach liqueur probably wouldn't have loused up the recipe too much. 

Comments

[Houston]

It's peach season in California, too. Your peaches forestiere sound good. I made peach and ginger preserves last month and served it over pound cake for dessert last Saturday. That worked good, too.

I loves me some peaches.

[keewee]

Just makes my mouth water.

[LC]

Peaches, tomatoes, and corn in August make the heat worth it.