Peach Crisp with Brown Sugar Whipped Cream
“Mom, I pooped in my wetsuit.”
Quote of the day, that. (Fortunately it came from Ben, who just ate some questionable poutine on the windy road between Ucluelet and Long Beach – ha! NOT MINE!) It spurred a top ten list of things you don’t want to hear your kids say, such as:
“Mom, Willem is pointing a hose in the house.”
“How do you get a pussywillow out of your nose anyway?”
“Those red berries by the porch – are they edible?”
We’re still working on it, but I’ll bet you guys have some to contribute. The rule is: it has to be something you actually heard your kid say.
Food has been plentiful. Have not yet made it to SoBo – an opportunity presented itself this evening, but a) I was wind-whipped and sandy and exhausted, and b) it was 7:30 on a Friday night during the height of July lets-visit-BC season. Am going to try to sneak in at some weird late-afternoon hour tomorrow for a late lunch/early dinner, and try my best to not eat up until then.
My sister has been buying peaches from the wee produce section of Beaches grocery all week. Each time she brought a bag home, they were consumed by the kids in under twenty minutes. Neither of us ever got any, save for a few precious juicy slivers snuck off the plates when we sliced them up. They were so divine that she went back this morning and bought an entire ($40) case, considering that between the ten of us we could easily plow through them at the rate we were going. We drove to Ucluelet to visit the tiny aquarium (if you haven’t been, I highly recommend it – it’s a one-room building packed with tanks full of marine life that gets plucked from the adjacent sea, and then returned every few months. Half the tanks are open so that you can pick up starfish and sea cucumbers – it’s like an ocean petting zoo).
Then we went to Long Beach and opened up the peaches we had wrapped in towels for the trip. Woody and tasteless. And from California – the BC peaches come in next week.
And we had a two-layer case of them. We turned about a dozen into a monstrous peach crisp, which we topped with whipped cream, sweetened with brown sugar. To do a crisp is easy, even when you have little more than a bowl and spoon, and even without access to measuring spoons. Thickly slice as many peaches as you want into a baking dish – without peeling them and without bothering to toss them with sugar, unless they are particularly sour. Keep in mind that fruit shrinks as it cooks, so it will seem like a lot of fruit, but cook down to almost half the quantity. For the topping, rub together about equal parts of butter (we used half butter, half canola oil), packed brown sugar, flour and oats – you can get away with using less butter or oil, particularly if it’s oil, which as a liquid will go a bit further. Whole wheat flour works great in crisps – its slightly nutty flavour and heartier texture is a perfect fit, and anyone who turns up their nose at whole wheat won’t even notice. I like a handful of sliced almonds too, particularly with peaches, but in a house of 10 that’s a matter of strong opinion.
Bake at 350F for about an hour, until bubbly and golden. We served ours with liberal amounts of whipped cream, sweetened with brown sugar.
One Year Ago: I ate at SoBo!
Oh for some Okanagan FRESH RIPE PEACHES!! All we seem to get here in the stores in Spruce Grove are the rock hard (although “pretty”) ones from somewhere south of the 49th that “ripen” into tasteless mush! Why can’t we support our own Canadian producers? We used to drive to Vernon every summer and load up on what was fresh and ripe…guess we have to DEMAND our supermarkets bring in local rather than picked-unripe “stone” fruits from around the world! Next real lovely peaches I find are going into your devine crisp!
On the subject of of top ten things you don’t want to hear from your kids.
We were on one of our yearly long trips back east and of course the kids were at each others throats,my daughter yells from the back seat of the old Ford station wagon “Mom Lornes got all his fingers down but one again”!!!!
“Mom, I’m sorry to have to tell you this….(fill in the blank)”
I’ve said lots of bizarre things to my parents, like the time my sister and I had an impromptu new year’s year party when we were 17ish and i had to tell my mom & dad that ‘…i have no idea where that bus load of people came from.’ When you go to SoBo can you try and figure out the recipe for the polenta fries? I don’t think i’m even close yet!
“Where’s my gum???” (in this case stuck to Daddy’s hair)
“If Dad dies, can we get a dog?”
…Said by my daughter Ellen when she was 4 years old and trying desperately to get a dog, despite her Dad’s allergies. Happy to say she has just graduated from high school and has been the proud co-owner of a hypo-allergenic, neurotic mini schnazuer, named Stuart for 8 years. And Dad is still is still alive and breathing! It’s all worked out quite well. LOL
“My butt exploded!” said my two year old last year. Thankfully she was on the toilet at the time – unlike a number of other times…
“Mommy makeup” A was maybe 2, 2&1/2… found her way in to my room and painted the walls, vanity, the duvet cover, my pillow and bedside table with lipstick and mascara. It was then that I discovered magic erasers and spray & wash dual power.
and
“Mommy where’s J?”
When he was maybe 18mo.(he’s 3 now) one of his dear sisters opened the side gate (that latches 6ft off the ground…that we thought no one under 10 could open) and ushered her little brother out without telling me. I got to the end of the driveway and just as I was ready to hyperventilate and trying to decide which direction to run in – a neighbour came down the street carrying him.
I’ve no kids so I can’t contribute anything to the conversation but have enjoyed eavesdropping.
We are another week or two away from peaches. I will live vicariously through you until that time.
Whispered in my ear at 1am when I was tucked nicely into bed after a long day: “Mommy, I think I’m gonna be si………” [splat]
At 8:13am while I was grabbing my keys for the school drive: “Oh, I forgot to tell you that I’m supposed to bring 100 things to school today to count since it is the 100th day of school today! It’s really important! We’re ALL supposed to bring something and I am supposed to count it out myself!”
At 8:24am while I am zooming late to school, daughter clutching a small baggy of 100 unpopped popcorn kernels she has counted herself: “I sure hope Mrs. C brings her popcorn popper today because it is supposed to be 100 things that we could share as a class snack at our 100 day party. I forgot to tell you that part.”
Heard from my six year old son, “Mom, I’m going outside. Oh, and by the way, I’m going to sweep off the roof of the garage, okay?”
After I knocked a magnetic calendar off the fridge, she said “It would be disturbing to see a fridge with no magnets”. Because of my very messy fridge, that made me laugh. She’s 10 and easily disturbed, I guess.
Most recently “Aunty, do you have big nipples, too?”
“Mom! Jeremy played with his poop again!” Coming from my four year old daughter who went to check if her one year old brother had woken up from his nap. No wonder the little bugger was so quiet! LOL!
Ooh – just thought of another! This came from a friend with daughters, while having a bath with them: “Mom, am I going to have long boobies like you when I grow up?” (She: great, I’m a 36 long.)
My daughters (about 9 and 6 at the time) were using a hammer and nails to build a bench from scraps left over from our fence. My six year old came in the house and said, completely seriously, “I wish we had a chainsaw”.
I forgot to add – I love that aquarium! It was closed a couple of years ago when I was there last, and we were so disappointed, so I’m glad it’s back open now. When we are there we always camp at Mussel Beach – the most beautiful campsites ever! If you haven’t been, you should check it out – the beachfront sites are like your own private tide-pool beach. My girls swam in the tidepools, alongside the starfish and everything else in there.
I have a good one….
“Mom, how do pigs make pork chops?”
This questions was popped out of the blue by my then 4 year old daughter while driving. I later had to explain to her that pork chops were acutally made not by pigs, but of pigs. I am happy to report that she was not bothered by this and is still an avid pork consumer. Bacon is her favorite.
🙂
Thanks for sharing the recipe, looks yummy.