Some friends went on vacation last week and emptied out their fridge for us, so suddenly we had a windfall of limes. Tony made a great avocado-tomatillo-lime salsa (Eli was eating it by the spoonful), and I made lime curd to spread on biscuits with blackberries (inspired somewhat by this Gourmet recipe). But there were still more! So I dug through my folder of recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines, and found this.

I know most of the country is still sweltering (and we’re back to unusually warm weather ourselves), so this dessert won’t make you break a sweat. No oven required, very little labor, and each bite is meltingly cool. All it takes is a bit of advance planning, since it needs to sit in the refrigerator for a couple hours (or overnight) to firm up. Maybe you can find room in your fridge to join it.

1 3/4 c graham cracker crumbs (from about 15 graham crackers)
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
6 tbsp melted butter

4 limes
1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/4 c heavy cream
1 one-oz square bittersweet chocolate

Combine graham cracker crumbs, cocoa and butter in a bowl. Press into a 9-inch springform pan, covering the bottom and pushing crumbs halfway up the side of the pan. Refrigerate until needed.

Grate 2 tbsp zest from the limes, then squeeze the juice (you should get about 3/4 c). Combine the juice and zest with the sweetened condensed milk and cream. Whisk until it thickens up a bit (the recipe says to keep whisking until it holds peaks, but I got tired way before that, and it all turned out ok). Pour the batter into the prepared crust and refrigerate at least 2 hours, or overnight.

To serve, remove the side of the springform pan and grate the bittersweet chocolate on top. Serve immediately, as the pie will melt away if you leave it at room temperature.

Ben doesn’t want me to play trains with him these days, he really just wants a witness. Or so I thought, since he was always shooting down my innovative track ideas, disagreeing with my notions of which train car could attach to which other train car, etc. So, the other morning, I stood up and started doing some yoga. Ben tolerated this for a couple minutes before saying, “Caroline, how about a little less yoga and a little more trains?”
Duly chastised, I sat down and started pushing my Mike engine (see, he doesn’t even let me touch the Thomas engine) around the track again.

Usually, my favorite thing to do with fresh summer peaches is to just slice them up onto my morning bowl of O’s and granola. But occasionally, I want something fancier, something to share with the whole family. Then, peach pie is a great way to go, but that heats up the whole kitchen. So then I saw this recipe. Brilliant! I couldn’t resist; we’ve been outside grilling food a lot anyway, why not grill dessert, too?
Now, I’m giving the recipe as I found it (torn out of a long-forgotten magazine). Next time I make it, though, I might spread the ricotta directly on the crust, before putting on the peaches. Someone try that and let me know how it goes.

4 large ripe peaches
juice of 1 lemon
1 pound of pizza dough
1 16-oz container ricotta cheese
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp supgar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp melted butter
1/2 c pumpkin seeds or pistachios

Preheat a gas grill to high; adjust to low after 15 minutes.
Peel the peaches, cut each into 16 slices, and drizzle with lemon juice. Set aside.
Combine the ricotta with 1/4 c sugar, set aside. Now combine the cinnamon and remaining 2 tbsp sugar and set that aside.
Lightly flour the back of a large baking sheet or pizza peel. Roll out the pizza dough to 1/4″ thick. Place the dough on the baking sheet, brush it with half the butter, and slide off the baking sheet directly onto the grill. Cook until the underside of the dough starts to brown, about 5 minutes (don’t worry if it bubbles up a little). Use tongs to slide the dough back onto your baking sheet, then flip the ungrilled side onto the grate. Brush the cooked side of the dough with the remaining butter. Arrange the peaches on top, and sprinkle with sugar & cinnamon and pumpkin seeds. Cover the grill and cook for 8-12 minutes, o runtil the underside of the crust browns. Slide off the grill and serve warm with the sweetened ricotta.

I’ve got a new column up at Literary Mama; go take a look!

This recipe comes from my sister, and it never fails. It comes together in just about the time it takes to slice some fruit, it works with various combinations of fruit (tonight I made it with 5 plums, 2 apricots, 1 nectarine and a handful of cherries), and most importantly, it tastes delicious. The cake is buttery, not too sweet, and develops a nice caramely crust on top while staying moist and tender below.

Filling:
You want roughly 3-6 cups of sliced fruit. Any stone fruit (peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, cherries) will be delicious. Apples work well, alone or in combination with pears or rhubarb; rhubarb & strawberries would be nice, too. Cut the fruit up and pour into a gratin or pie dish; sprinkle with a tablespoon of lemon juice and a teaspoon or so of cinnamon.

Topping:
1 1/2 sticks melted butter
3/4 c sugar
1 c flour
2 beaten eggs

Combine the topping ingrediants into a batter and pour over the fruit. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes, until the crust is golden and the fruit is bubbling up around the edges.

Ben is starting to read (more about this exciting development another day), but he’s not what you’d call literate yet. Still, when he found the Scrabble set and asked me to play with him, I figured we’d give it a whirl.
He loved the feel of the little tiles, as I do, and was pleased with how neatly they fit on the rack. He was happy to count out his 7 letters, and replace the proper number every time he played a “word.” But he wasn’t particularly interested in building on the words already played. Or in playing with actual English words (although he did ask me for the pronunciation of each word he played, and would report on them to Tony, correcting Tony if he mispronounced the imaginary word). It was a good game.

We’ve been enjoying some uncharacteristically summery weather here in San Francisco. The fog held off for nearly two weeks, we kept our sweatshirts in the closet, we took evening picnics to the park.

But that’s over. I saw a woman today wearing a typical summer-in-the-city outfit: sandals with socks, long pants, t-shirt, down vest, sun hat, and ear muffs.

I’ve been making granola ever since Trader Joe’s discontinued my favorite fruit & nut combo. I started with a recipe from Nigella Lawson’s Feast, which I posted over on the old blog, but I’ve adapted it so much since then (cutting down the sugar, adding more seeds), I figure it’s time for an update. So this is my granola now:

5 c rolled oats and/or multigrain cereal (Trader Joe’s carries a nice barley-oat-rye-wheat flake mix that I combine half and half with oats)
2 c almonds
1 c pumpkin seeds
1 c sesame seeds
1 c sunflower seeds
1/2 c ground flax meal
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp salt
4-6 oz applesauce (I use one of the individual serving cups that Ben takes in his lunchbox)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 c honey, rice syrup, maple syrup, or some combination thereof
1 c raisins, dried cranberries, or some combination thereof

Preheat oven to 320. Stir together all the dry ingrediants in a large bowl until well combined. Add applesauce, then oil and honey or syrup, and combine well. Pour into two large, greased baking pans (I use two lasagne pans) and bake for 45 minutes, stirring once or twice along the way. Remove from the oven, stir in the dried fruit, then cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

From Peter Gray’s The Mistress Cook (1956), with thanks to my mom for transcribing! (and with apologies for his non-PC reference…)

“Pfirche bohle. South Germany has contributed little to the gaiety of nations but this effort makes up for a lot. Take a perfect, sun ripened, peach: skin it and halve it. Place the half in a sundae glass and prick it all over with a fork until it looks like the victim of Chinese torture. Fill the glass with sekt, a dry German champagne. Eat on a hot summer evening with a faint noise of band music in the background.”

I was browsing buttermilk recipes, looking for a use for the liquid that drained off the ricotta cheese I made last week (most recipes just have you pour it down the drain, but that seemed like a big waste). I knew I could just make pancakes, or really any kind of cake, but I hadn’t made bread in a while, and this recipe, from Suzanne Dunaway’s No Need to Knead is the easiest I’ve ever come across. Seriously, if you think bread is a big production, this is the recipe for you. It takes less than thirty minutes of effort; mostly it just sits around becoming dough, and then bread, all by itself. And the result is just about the tenderest, fine-crumbed sandwich bread I’ve ever eaten, let alone made. It does take a little advance planning, since you need to stir together the sponge the night before. But if you do that before bed, then you’ll have 2 gorgeous loaves in plenty of time for some toast to go with your mid-morning cup of tea.

Sponge
2 tbsp dry yeast
1/2 c lukewarm tap water
2 c warmed buttermilk (or the liquid that drained off your homemade ricotta cheese)
2 c unbleached bread flour

Dough
2 tbsp melted butter
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp salt
3-3 1/2 c unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp olive oil

Combine water and yeast in a large glass or ceramic bowl. Add the buttermilk and bread flour
and stir well. Cover with plastic wrap and let ferment overnight at room temperature. It may bubble up and then fall — that’s fine. In the morning, it will be bubbly and fragrant.

In the morning, add the butter, honey, and salt to the sponge and mix well. Stir in flour until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Rub your hands with oil and lift the dough out of the bowl onto a lightly floured surface. Knead once or twice. Now let it sit a minute while you rinse out the mixing bowl with warm water, towel dry, and coat with olive oil. Put the dough in the oiled bowl, cover with oiled plastic wrap, and let rise about 1 hour.

Oil two 8 1/2 x 4″ loaf pans. Divide the dough in half and form each into a loaf. Place loaves in pans, brush with oil, cover, and let rise until the dough reaches the rim of the pans, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 450. Bake loaves for 25-40 minutes. Check for doneness by turning one loaf out of the pan and tapping the bottom; if it sounds hollow, it’s baked through. If the loaves are browning too much but don’t seem quite done, cover loosely with foil for the final 5-10 minutes of baking. Cool on a wire rack.