Wine Country Tour and Tasting Oct. 11-13

8 / 14 / 13

A Little Glimpse Into Fall 2013 Tour

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October 11 -13, 2013

Fall Harvest Tour

Cambria & Paso Robles

California’s Beautiful Central Coast

Accommodations at Cambria Pines Lodge

Did you know October is Scarecrow Harvest Festival in Cambria, don’t miss them!

Friday Evening Events

Incredible Cambria Fall Farmers Market

Self-Guided Tour, Optional

Italian Style Dinner Party Cooking Class

Learn to make your own mozzarella cheese

Your own handmade grilled pizza

Italian Salads, Local Wine & Fun!

Saturday Events

10:00 – 3:00 (approximately)

Tour with Wine Wrangler

Vineyard Wine Tour and Tasting

Private ‘Vineyard’ Lunch and Tasting at Croad Winery

and more…..

Sunday Events

10 – 2 (approximately)

Windrose Farm

Biodynamic Farm Tour & Lunch

Join Bill & Barbara Spencer for a unique farm tour and learn all about Biodynamic Farming and why it should be important to you and your food supply. Spend a few hours on a real working family farm then relax under the huge oak tree with a seasonal farm to table lunch prepared with ingredients that are found on the farm that day. Well, maybe a few extra treats thrown in! It’s a day you soon won’t forget

Summer Pantry

6 / 23 / 13

Summer Pantry

Summer is the time that I am refilling my pantry with my own canned goods, jams, brandied fruit, pickle relish, and all kinds of pickled fruit and vegetables. Some purchased items round out the summer pantry. Here’s what you’ll find in mine, ‘What’s In Your Pantry?’©

Anchovy paste – for great salad dressings and more

Artichoke Hearts – Salads, antipasto platter, or mix in pasta

BBQ sauce – for quick grilled meals

Canned or dried beans – I keep some refrigerated for tossing in salads

Canned Tomatoes and Pasta sauce – indispensible for all sorts of dishes

Chicken Stock – canned or homemade

Chili sauce – Ketchup – Horseradish – Worcestershire sauce

Crackers – Mixed

Dried Pasta – Great for cold salads and fast meals

Dried Italian sausage – for hot, hot nights, a cold platter of cheese, sausage, some pickled veggies and a hunk of fresh bread, but don’t forget the wine!

Hearts of Palm – antipasto platter or salads

Italian Tuna in olive oil –

Potatoes – Small fingerling type for salads, frittatas and roasting

Rice – Bomba (for paella), Carnaroli or Arborio (for risotto) and Jasmine for everything else

Tapenades – unexpected company? easy appetizers

Nuts – almonds, pine nuts (fresh pesto anyone?), walnuts

Oats – for yummy cobblers, muffins and fruit crisps

Olives – Can you tell I love antipasto platters?

Cold Pantry

Cheese – cheddar, jack, mozzarella, fontina, Swiss and blue

Pizza dough (in the freezer, of course), quick to defrost and throw on a grill topped with anything!

Frozen fruit – from the garden or the farmers market. Freeze individually then place in a quart-sized bag, for fruit tart, crisp or pie

Don’t forget your pantry basics either:

Flour, Sugars, Baking Powder/Soda, Baking mix, Cocoa powder, Cornstarch, Honey, Molasses, Vanilla, Vinegars, Yeast, Olive Oil………………

For more pantry stocking ideas, check my book ‘What’s In Your Pantry?’©

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Growing & Decorating Gourds & Pumpkins

6 / 10 / 1312 / 14 / 14

Dress Your Pumpkin Contest!

Dress your pumpkin with anything but no carving allowed. Pumpkins must come ready to go, no primping on site!

Saturday October 26th
10 am

The Plant Stand

2972-A Century Place

Costa Mesa, California 92626-4324

Toll Free: (800) 698-1077

Peach Cobbler

6 / 4 / 1312 / 4 / 14

Filling

4 cups peeled, chopped fresh peaches
1 cup sugar, approximately
¼ cup cornstarch
pinch sea salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup Grand Marnier
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Batter

½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat the oven to 375°. Butter a 9” square baking pan and set aside.

Filling:

Add peaches to a medium sized bowl and toss gently with sugar. Depending on how sweet the peaches are, add more or less sugar.

In a small bowl, mix together the cornstarch, sea salt, cinnamon and Grand Marnier. Toss the peaches with the cornstarch mixture and lemon juice.

Add the filling to the prepared pan.

Batter:

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and sea salt, mix well. Add the butter and egg, stir together until the batter is smooth.

Drop the batter by spoonfuls onto the fruit mixture and bake 40 – 45 minutes or until bubbly and golden.

Remove from oven and cool before serving.

Peaches

6 / 4 / 1312 / 4 / 14

Oh all those beautiful rosy peaches from the farmers market! They smell like summer and I don’t know about you but I wait all year for them to show up!
I have a peach tree but that in no way yields enough peaches to satisfy my sweet tooth. Seasonal peaches are available in California from June to Sept. Peaches from other parts of the world are usually picked hard and mostly premature and will never develop that sweet summer flavor.

The following is part of the prologue to David Mas Masumoto’s book ‘Epitaph for a Peach’, he is talking about the Sun Crest peach but I think it reflects all good peaches. “Sun Crest is one of the last remaining truly juicy peaches. When you wash that treasure under a stream of cooling water, your fingertips instinctively search for the gushy side of the fruit. Your mouth waters in anticipation. You lean over the sink to make sure you don’t drip on yourself. Then you sink your teeth into the flesh and the juices trickle down your cheeks and dangle on your chin. This is a real bite, a primal act, a magical sensory celebration announcing that summer has arrived. “

Choose peaches that yield slightly to pressure, hard fruit isn’t ripe and though it will get softer, it won’t get tastier. Peaches need to develop flavor and sweetness while still hanging on the tree, color will vary with peach varieties but avoid and peaches that show any sign of green. Smell the peach for sweetness and you’ll be fine.

Peaches should be kept at room temperature until soft and then refrigerated but don’t wait too long to eat them or they’ll over ripen.

I find it pretty easy to peel a ripe peach with a sharp paring knife or you can blanch in boiling water for a few seconds, don’t over do or you’ll start to cook the fruit flesh.

Here’s my favorite cobbler recipe that I pieced together from two different recipes that I use. One from my favorite boysenberry pie and the cobbler batter from Marcy Masumoto’s ‘French Peach Cobbler’ recipe from The Perfect Peach: Recipes and Stories from The Masumoto Family Farm.

Debbi’s Peach Cobbler recipe