Posts Tagged ‘make it do’

A recipe this easy should not be this good.  But it is.

Peaches are in season here in Utah, and that means I’m in heaven.  I love to eat them raw.  And I love peaches for dessert.

Peach Pie is my favorite.  If you’ve never tried the recipe I shared for Fresh Peach Pie, please do.  It’s one of the best recipes I’ve ever shared.

But most days, making a pie… well, it’s just not going to happen.  To make this Peach Cobbler, all you need is 10- 15 minutes, plus bake time and you’ve got a wonderfully delicious dessert.

We love to eat cobbler served with milk poured into the bottom of the bowl.  That’s the way my husband grew up eating cobbler and that’s the way I love it now too. I’ve shared this same recipe before, for Rhubarb Blackberry Cobbler.  It’s versatile, you can really use whatever fruit you love in a cobbler.  In our family, Peach Cobbler is King!

Peach Cobbler

4 cups peeled and sliced peaches

½ cup sugar- less if the peaches are really sweet

½ cup water

Batter:

½ cup melted butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup flour

1 cup milk

2 tsp. baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Pour ½ cup sugar and ½ cup water over fruit and stir.  Pour fruit mixture evenly into 9×9 baking dish and set aside. Whisk together melted butter, remaining sugar, flour, milk and baking powder.  Pour batter evenly over the fruit mixture. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream, or with milk poured into the bowl.  A sprinkle of grated nutmeg is wonderful option.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Peel and slice your peaches.  This is what takes the most time, which is the good news, since you only need about 5 good sized peaches, it doesn’t take long.  The recipe calls for 4 cups of sliced peaches and I err more on 4 heaping cups.  But be careful not to use too many peaches or you can overflow the pan.  I’ve done that before.

Pour 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar (I use less if my peaches are sweet) and stir.  Pour the peaches into a 9″ x 9″ baking dish.

Melt a cube of butter.  Yep.  That’s why this cobbler is so good.  That butter makes magic happen, and my waistline expand.

Also add a cup of sugar,

a cup of flour,

a cup of milk… there’s such nice symmetry to this recipe… 1 cup of just about everything.

and 2 teaspoons of baking powder.

Whisk the whole thing together.  See, I told you it was fast!

Pour the batter evenly over your peaches.  Try not to jostle the pan too much here.  I once made this cobbler and walked it across the street unbaked to my neighbor’s home.  By the time I got there, the liquid in the bottom had really mixed with the batter, and the cobbler wasn’t very good.

Straight into the oven, and you are good.

It bakes for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Last night, that meant that by the time my cobbler came out of the oven, the light in my kitchen was gone.  The days are really getting shorter and I hate photos after dark… my apologies!

Trust me, this cobbler tastes WAY better than it looks.

We served it up with milk.

I can even be tricked into feeling like it is really healthy.  Uh-um.

Make it tonight and I know you’ll love it!

I have been thinking of writing a series of posts on mending for a while.  Last year, I wrote about how to mend jeans with a rip in the rear… that really rolls off the tongue…. which was practical, but not at all stylish.

For those mending projects I don’t have a clue on- such as darning a sock or mending a sweater, I want to find an expert who will show me (and you) how.  If you think a series like this would be useful to you, let me know what mending jobs trouble you…

For the first in my series of Make Do and Mend, I was inspired by a friend:

Last spring, Amy of Diary of a Quilter shared a tutorial on how to mend a torn out knee.  I asked Amy if I could show her technique, which is cute as well as practical.  Amy told me that her daughter’s mended jeans are still going strong, the patch is perfectly in place, and they are one of her favorite pair.

Here’s how to mend a hole in the knee:

You’re going to need jeans with a hole in the knee, of course.

Iron on patches are widely available.  I picked these up a my local Walmart.  If you’ve ever used these before, you’ll find out the hard way, that they don’t stay on long when you just iron them on.

That’s OK.  This technique will make them much more permanent and stylish too.

You can use just about anything as a template.  But today, I am using cookie cutters.  They have simple lines, and are the perfect size.  You can also find many templates online too.  I found a skull template on Martha Stewart that I am modifying to mend my son’s jeans.

I traced around the butterfly on the back side of my patch using a Sharpie.  This may shock a few of you, but I tried pencil, and a Mark B Gone pen and they just didn’t show up.  The Sharpie worked great, I was just careful to cut inside the line of black.  You could use a white fabric marking pencil, but I couldn’t find mine.  –Do what you can with what you have, I guess.

I also cut out a flower for a different pair.  This one I embellished with another fabric too.

I had a scrap of fabric with a perfect flower.I used a small bit of Wonder Under on the back side of my chosen flower.  Iron it on.

Then cut around the flower.  The Wonder Under isn’t strictly necessary for a piece this small.  It’s peace of mind that it won’t fall off.  Peel off the paper backing…

DON’T try to iron it onto your patch yet!  Your patch will get sticky on the back, and be stuck to your ironing board.  (No, I didn’t do that… but I wouldn’t put it past me.)

Stitch your embellishment onto your cut patch using a blanket stitch or a zigzag.

Now you can iron the whole thing over the hole in your jeans.

Just as Amy suggests, I rolled the jeans up, to make the sewing easier.  Also just like Amy, I used a heavier weight- DMC thread, a heavy needle…

and a thimble to stitch around the flower.  I kept my needle working from the top as shown.  It’s a little tough to sew through the denims, but not too bad.And the jeans are done.  This patch is as cute as can be.  Because it’s been stitched, it’s not going to fall off anytime soon.

My daughters think they look super cool… and won’t feel embarrassed to wear clothes that have been mended.

Mending is good for your pocket book… and environmental, too.

So Make Do and Mend!  It’s a good thing, Martha.