Winter Plum Tart

Hello. It's your favorite slacker blogger here.

I won't try to excuse my laziness, I will simply tempt you to forgive me with gooey, glisteny baked fruit.

Of course, to get in on some of this freshly made Winter Plum Tart, you'll have to come all the way to No. 1 Thames St, Oxford, UK (a plane ride for some, merely a bike for others). Or just make your own version, you moocher. Just kidding (I'm not so good at this groveling for forgiveness thing).

Anyway, I finally discovered the joys of the Wednesday market at Gloucester Green this morning and just couldn't resist the mound of plums on sale for £1.00 (I may also have to make an avocado tart, a green chili galette and a coriander pie to get through all the goodies I snatched up -- all for only £5.00)! Fruit like this deserves to be baked and glazed and served with fresh cream. Plus, we still have a dozen left over after this whole darn tart.

It was a relatively simple process, actually. A bit annoying with the plum-slicing, but isn't just so pretty?

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.