It is not a pleasant place to be.

Peaches have such a great reputation, too: “Peaches ‘n Cream”, “Life is just peachy”, “Life is just a bowl of peaches” (oh wait, that’s cherries).

I do like peaches, I really do. I have memories of squatting by the kiddie pool at our Maytown house, biting into the fuzzy fruit, juice dripping down my chin, elbows, knees (we were by the kiddie pool for a reason). Peach jam, peach tart with mounds of whipped cream, canned peaches spooned over granola, homemade vanilla ice cream with frozen, mashed, sugared peaches—it’s all very good. But that’s just the eating part. Putting them up is a different story.

Peaches have a nasty tradition of confounding me. First of all, it can be tricky to get the peaches to surrender up their pits. The peaches have to be perfectly ripened and not at all mushy. (If they are still green, I have to stab the peach with my knife, and, using all the strength that I can muster up in my fingers and wrists, attempt to pry the rock-hard, woody, rough pit out of the peach. I often end up bruising my knuckles on the pit or on the sides of the kitchen sink because my hands spastically fly apart when the pit finally does fall free. Then I come very close to screaming curses. If the peaches are at all mushy, then I just have a bunch of mush, which, while not very appealing, has the ability to be jammed.)

Second, peaches have the ability to rot quickly. This is something I still have not learned, though you’d think I’d have learned my lesson after the Peach Disaster of 2001 (or was is 2002?). That year, Mr. Handsome and I put up a pile of peaches, to the tune of about 50 quarts. This was also the year that my generous mother-in-law gave us the outdoor cookstove from Lehman’s Hardware. The stove had two, very powerful burners and we zipped along cheerily, turning out dozens of jars filled with golden peach slices. But, over the course of the next several days, our jars of peaches began to unseal. Pop. Pop. Pop. We were stunned and dismayed. We put the jars in the fridge, planning to re-can them, but it didn’t happen because when we opened the lids and took a sniff, we realized the peaches were already rotting. We dumped them down the garbage disposal, instead—glub, glub, glub—about 40 quarts of peaches slithering down the drain.

Talk about depressing.

(The reason for the unsealing was that the heavy-duty cookstove heated up the canner water extremely quickly, but the jarred peaches didn’t heat up as fast, so the fruit never reached the proper temperature. We still use the cookstove, but we can over medium heat, and then leave the fruit in the canner for a few extra minutes, just to be sure.)

What happened this morning isn’t nearly as bad, but it still made me fume. Last night I washed, peeled, and sliced up a big bowl of beautiful peaches (no bruised knuckles that time) and put the slices on the dehydrator trays. I ran the dehydrator (another gift from my generous mother-in-law) for several hours, but I turned it off before I went to bed because the dehydrator is quite powerful (I think there may be a connection between my mother-in-law and powerful presents) and I didn’t want the peaches to be cornflakes come morning. However, when I came down this morning and turned the dehydrator back on, I got a nauseating wiff of rotten peaches. So the chickens got the peaches, instead. In retrospect, cornflake peaches would’ve been just fine.

I have more peaches to do up, and I plan on buying some more bushels over the next several weeks, so I suppose the good news is that I will have lots of chances to work out the kinks and get really good at preserving peaches sans rotting. I hope I remember everything I learn by next August when it comes time to sink into the sink with the peach pits yet again (that didn’t really make sense, but I like how it sounded).

Life will be peachy… once all the peaches are canned.

…and went to heaven, and do I ever have a surprise for you: heaven is made up of Tomato Bread Pudding. And here all along you had thought it was made up of gold—ha! Three simple things, tomatoes, bread, and pudding, but when done the right way (with a few more ingredients)—um-um-um, glorious!

I was floating around, high on Roasted Tomato Perfume, but now I have parked my rear firmly on my wooden chair and my fingers are furiously clacking away, rushing to tell the tale.

I read this recipe in Gourmet magazine, the same one that had the fried lemons and parsley dish. Wait! Do not go away! This recipe redeems that other recipe, and then some.

This dish takes a lot of oven time, so make it in the cool of the morning. It reheats well (at least I imagine it would, but I can’t honestly say I know that for sure since I haven’t tried reheating it yet), so bake it up in the morning, and then heat it up for dinner. I ate this for lunch today, and I plan to eat it for supper tonight, breakfast tomorrow, lunch tomorrow… you get the general idea.

Tomato Bread Pudding
Adapted from Gourmet magazine, the July 2008 issue

3 pounds Roma tomatoes, the little top cut off and then the tomatoes halved lengthwise
1 ½ teaspoons herbes de Provence (I made my own mixture a while back—I don’t know the proportions right off the bat, but it consists of marjoram, sage, basil, thyme, fennel, and rosemary)
some good olive oil, about a half cup
1 head of garlic
1 loaf of crusty, white bread (about one pound)
2 cups milk
1 cup cream
8 eggs
2 cups grated Fontina cheese (about 9 ounces)
½ cup Parmesan cheese, grated
salt and pepper

Put the halved tomatoes in a large bowl, drizzle with two tablespoons of olive oil, add the herbes de Provence, 3/4 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, and toss well. Arrange the tomatoes, cut side up, on a large sheet pan, one with sides.

Take the head of garlic and cut off the top of it, about a quarter inch down, so that you can see the cloves. Discard the top.

Place the scalped head of garlic on a piece of foil, drizzle the garlic with about 1 teaspoon of olive oil, wrap the foil up tight around the garlic, and place the metallic ball on the sheet with the tomatoes.

Bake the tomatoes and garlic in a 375 degree oven for 50-60 minutes. The tomatoes will be brown and very slightly blackened, but still have a good deal of juice. The garlic will be soft. The house will smell divine. Remove the pan from the oven and let sit for a little while.

Take the loaf of bread and cut it into 1-inch cubes.

Put the bread cubes in a large bowl and toss with 1/3 cup olive oil. Spread the cubes on another large cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 10-20 minutes, stirring once or twice, until toasty brown.

When the garlic is cool enough to touch, squeeze the garlic out of it’s paper wrapper.

The recipe said to push it through a sieve, but that didn’t go so hotsy-totsy for me, and besides, I don’t see any real point to it. So just mush up the garlic real well with your fingertips, checking to see if there are any hard lumps or fibers; if so, pick them out.

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, milk, garlic paste, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1 ½ teaspoons black pepper. Add the cheeses.

Now, grease a 9×13 glass pan and put the toasted bread cubes in it. Pour the cream mixture over top of the bread. Place the roasted tomatoes on the top, pressing them down in a little. Bake the pudding at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes, until it’s firm and nicely browned. Allow to cool for a little bit before eating. Or not.

Alright. I’m done now. I won’t delay you any longer. Go out to the kitchen and cook up a pan of heaven on earth. Feel free to belt out some hymns while you chop and roast and whisk your way to a higher, better place.

Another thought: What would this be like if I added some browned sausage to the pudding mixture? What about a couple of caramelized onions? Oo-oo-ooh! I’m being transported! Someone grab my feet, quick!

Wait a second. The first paragraph in that last post was supposed to go with this post. I had made a healthy summertime pizza and was going to tell you about it to prove that I don’t only make sugary foods. But I got sidetracked. Apparently.

Anyway, here it is.

Summertime Pizza
I think it was Barbara Kingsolver who gave me the idea of putting the cheese down first on the pizza crust, so I should probably say this recipe is adapted from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

your favorite pizza crust recipe (mine follows)
one pound of mozzarella cheese, shredded
some shredded Parmesan cheese, if you wish
about five Roma tomatoes, sliced
several handfuls of fresh herbs, a variety of whatever is growing in your garden (basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, etc)
cornmeal for dusting
good olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400-450 degrees. Brush a large cookie sheet (preferably one with sides) with lots of olive oil and then sprinkle it with cornmeal. Place the pizza dough on the cookie sheet and flatten it out with your fingers, gently pressing it into the corners of the cookie sheet. Sprinkle the grated mozzarella cheese over the crust. Lay the tomato slices on top of the cheese. Roughly chop up your herbs (no need to wash them if you grew them yourself) and sprinkle them over the tomatoes. Top with some freshly grated Parmesan. Drizzle olive oil over the whole thing. Be generous, now!

Bake the pizza for ten minutes, or until the cheese is brown and bubbly and the bottom of the crust is a golden brown. Remove the pizza from the oven and brush more olive oil on the crusty edge—the oil softens the crust and makes it yummy. (I really like olive oil.)

This recipe makes one large pizza, and serves 4-8, depending on what else is for supper.

Pizza Crust
Adapted from the More-With-Less Cookbook.

1 tablespoon yeast
a pinch of sugar
1 cup warm water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 tablespoons sugar
About 3 cups of flour (part of which may be whole wheat), and then a bit more

In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast, with the pinch of sugar, in the cup of warm water.

In a larger bowl, measure in the oil, salt, sugar, and a cup of the flour. Add the dissolved yeast mixture and stir well. Add the rest of the flour. Knead the dough until it is soft and elastic. Let it rest for at least five minutes before shaping it into a pizza crust.

This recipe makes one thick crust, or two thin crusts.