Tuesday's Special: Peach-a-Berry Cobbler

I've decided that every Tuesday I'll post our family's favorite recipes.  Hopefully this will help remind me of our favorites when I'm at a loss of what to make/cook/bake!  Ever have that problem???  Surely I'm not the only one!  I'm the kind of person who is always trying something new.  (sigh)  However, sometimes it's really comforting to have an old favorite.

peach-a-berry cobbler

This week: Peach-a-Berry Cobbler (I believe this is originally from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook but I'm honestly not sure as I got this recipe from my sister-in-law, Beth).  We always have frozen blueberries and either frozen or home-canned peaches on-hand.  This cobbler has been a major hit with all of our guests and is something I (and you too) can whip up easily.

* * *The amounts for the peaches and blueberries aren't exact.  If your fruit mixture isn't thick enough you can quickly mix more cornstarch with cold water before stirring it into the hot fruit mixture (make sure you stir the cornstarch mixture into the hot fruit mixture so that you don't end up with lumps...but even if you do get lumps it'll still taste great.  Trust me!).  It's not super critical to get it thick unless you don't like a soupy cobbler!* * *


* * *  I've also added other berries- like strawberries, raspberries or black raspberries to the fruit mixture.  I usually do this when I've got partially filled bags of frozen berries that by themselves don't amount to much.  It's a good way to use up those frozen berries! * * *

Peach-a-Berry Cobbler

Preheat oven to 350F. 


Ingredients for Fruit Filling
1 Tb cornstarch
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups sliced peaches (sugared; usually canned peaches are sugared)
1 cup blueberries (I'll often do more- up to 2 cups)
1 Tb butter
1 Tb lemon juice (I use bottled to keep things easy!)


Directions
Whisk together the first three ingredients (cornstarch, brown sugar, COLD water) in a medium pot.  Add fruits and cook on medium heat until mixture thickens (will take some time if using frozen fruit).  Remove from heat and add 1 Tb butter and 1 Tb lemon juice.  Pour into 8-1/2 inch round or square baking dish (I use a 2-quart Pyrex baking dish).  


Ingredients for Topping
1 cup all purpose flour (I've even used whole wheat pastry flour instead of the all purpose flour with great success.  Sometimes I'll do 1/2 cup w.w. pastry flour and 1/2 cup a.p. flour)
1/2 cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup butter; softened (half stick)
Cinnamon Sugar (optional; 1/4 tsp cinnamon + 2 Tb sugar; I usually make up a bunch of cinnamon sugar)


Directions
In a medium bowl, sift the dry ingredients (I do this by whisking the dry ingredients together to get out all the major lumps).  Add milk and softened butter and beat mixture until smooth (I use a rubber spatula to mix).  The topping mixture will be very thick It'll be more like cookie dough than cake batter. Spoon over the fruit mixture and sprinkle Cinnamon Sugar (optional) over the top.


Bake at 350F for 30 minutes (until topping is lightly browned and the fruit mixture is bubbly).  **Note to make life easier on yourself: place the ready-to-bake cobbler on a lipped cookie sheet or jelly roll pan before placing in the oven.  (the cookie sheet goes in the oven as well).  That way if the cobbler bubbles over it won't mean extra oven cleaning time!  I do this for all my pies, cobblers, crisps...anything that is likely to bubble over and cause a mess.**
  
Serve with {vanilla} ice cream or whipped cream (how about whipped cream sweetened with maple syrup? Or how about honey or maple syrup sweetened plain yogurt for a healthier topping?).  Serves 6...supposedly! If you add lots of whipped cream or ice cream you could probably double the number of servings!

We've eaten this for dessert...and leftovers for a lovely breakfast.

Another little note...I made this cobbler today using 2+ cups of frozen blueberries plus the 2 cups of sliced peaches.  I didn't add any extra cornstarch and my fruit was kind of soupy- meaning not very thick (which I don't mind).  I also did a sugar substitution on the topping.  I used 1/2 cup of Stevia (because I bought a bag of it the other day to try out) and 1/2 cup regular granulated sugar.  Guess what?  It tastes great!  I'll need to get opinion from all my family members but I might try this cobbler topping using just stevia instead of sugar.  Does anyone know anything about using stevia?  Is it indeed a good alternative to sugar?
ETA- The cobbler was a huge hit with all the members of the family.  Nobody could tell there was anything different (the stevia) about it.  Also, the fruit mixture did thicken up as it cooled.  It was soooo good that I might have accidentally had seconds.  oops. With plain yogurt sweetened with a little bit of maple syrup.  Yummy!

on the topic of blueberries....


Want to know how we manage to keep a frozen stash of blueberries?  Every August (around the 10th) you'll find us in Michigan...picking blueberries!  We pick enough (plus purchase extra from the blueberry farm if needed) for us to have a stash of blueberries in the freezer. 

If you should ever happen on an awesome deal on blueberries and don't-know-what-to-make-this-instant-with-them-this is what I'd do: wash them gently using either a colander, sieve or salad spinner.  Gently rinse the berries and swish them around to make sure you've gotten all of them clean.  Spin dry if using a salad spinner (I use that one I purchased for less than $5 at Wal-Mart and it works great).  Dump the damp berries on kitchen towels (I line my countertop with clean kitchen towels while I'm working with blueberries).  Sort through the berries- toss any that are over-ripe or mushy (will have an odd, yucky taste) or green.  Toss any leaves or anything not a blueberry!  (small children helping berries often get distracted) Using another clean kitchen towel very *gently* dry the berries (they bruise easily!).  Using quart-sized freezer Ziploc (or other brand) bags place 4 cups of the dried-off cleaned berries per bag.  Label or not label the bag depending on your mood.  Frozen blueberries are easy to identify!  Freeze for future use.  Now, it is important to get most of the berries as dry as possible (by gently rubbing the berries with clean towel or paper towel).  Otherwise you might end up with a glob of frozen blueberries that you can't separate and will need to use all at once.  By doing it with this method you'll end up with frozen blueberries you can easily remove the amount you need and refreeze the rest.  (I mean...take out what you need without thawing the entire batch....you definitely don't want to completely thaw out a bag of blueberries, take some and refreeze the remaining. )  Anyway...it's worked for us and for my sister-in-law for many years.  

That little bit of extra work during blueberry season is well worth it!  I'll post more of our favorite blueberry recipes.  :-) 


*I'm sharing this recipe with Balancing Beauty & Bedlam's Tasty Tuesday Parade.