New City, New Ingredients

I am alive, believe it or not. Not cooking nearly enough, but alive surely.

For the past month I've been traveling and getting ready to move to the UK from the US, so my cooking has been at a minimum and my energy level even lower. I am finally here, but living in a temporary situation until our flat is ready. I'm renting a room for now from an old English lady who just entered a Plumb Tart into the baking competition at her Horticultural Society. Yes, this is someone's real life I'm speaking of. She is great and the kitchen smells often of chocolate cakes and banana breads.

I am also starting a full-time Master's Degree program next week, so my brain power has been devoted to remembering how to study. It's easy to get excited about going back to school in a city like Oxford.

I will have to be on a bit of a blog hiatus until my life settles in, though I have a couple back-log posts to get in, including:

Grace's Grandmother's Baked Sea Scallops
and
Italian Clifftop Food

So keep your eyes peeled.

I am joining up with another crew of foodie folk in my new city, so maybe we'll see a guest blogger or a tag-team meal in here soon! See you all soon . . .

California Nectarine Cobbler

The best souvenirs are edible ones.

My in-laws returned from a trip to Fresno the other day, their carry-ons stuff with nectarines.

I

Now, these things would have been delicious in almost any form, but I've never made a cobbler before, so they became the guinea pigs. I went with the Joy of Cooking for this one, though I was quickly cursing those little old ladies who edited the dessert section. I basically made this up as I went along, forced to fill in their blanks with what very limited knowledge I have of baking. Again, these could have been drizzled with gasoline and still tasted heavenly. So, despite the insufficient directions and the real ugliness of the preparation, the cobbler wasn't a total disaster.

The preparation is very "Joy of Cooking" in its rusticity. You can just see how the cobbler was born out of leftover biscuit dough and overripe fruit. In fact, good ol' Joy had me flipping pages three times over to get from the biscuit recipe, to the pie filling recipe, and back to the cobbler recipe to confirm (for the thousandth time) that they really didn't mention how to prepare the filling.

When you have it all in one place, it's very easy to get a basic cobbler together. Read on for assembling the California Nectarine Cobbler.

Summer Veggie Phyllo Galette

I am going to admit that a few weeks ago I couldn't have told a galette from a tart. Even now, one just looks lazier than another to me.

Tart: Try hard to make your crust look pretty.
Galette: Don't.

Some peasant in ancient France probably laughed at the people who assigned a name to her poor attempt at dealing with the excess crust hanging over the edge of her tart pan.

Whatever the reason for the existence of a galette, eating one is pretty nice (as are most things that involve pastry crusts). I heard about a vegetable version of this usually fruit-based food (recipe found here and modified to make my galette) and I thought it would be a good summer side dish. I also wanted an excuse to buy more phyllo dough, so I decided to make it a Summer Veggie Phyllo Galette.

What you don't see above are the three cheeses all melty underneath the veggies. Mmmmmmmmm.

It wasn't terribly hard to make, honestly. Read on to learn how.