Just about two weeks ago I was out mowing my lawn when my neighbor came walking over to me. Actually, not my direct neighbor, but the guy two houses down who I probably haven't said one word to since we moved in close to ten years ago.
In case you aren't "in the know", I am a bit of an introvert, so standing out in the street on our cul de sac and shooting the breeze with my neighbors really isn't my cup of tea. I struggle with small talk unless I have a decent amount of liquid courage, and quite honestly, I prefer the company of my wife and dog over strangers, even if they are the strangers next door.
So anyway, I was out mowing my lawn. We have a pretty small quarter acre lot, so I push mow (not self propelled), I figure it is good exercise for me. It's funny because everyone else in the neighborhood has riding mowers for lots that aren't much bigger than ours.
There I go getting side tracked again.
So this neighbor comes walking up to me and he has an armful of something that I can't quite make out. I'm a hot sweaty mess at this point. No, for real, I look like I just climbed out of Lake Huron, that's how sweaty I am and this guys says to me:
You like peaches?
Now, again, if you know me, you know that music is a pretty big part of my life, so as soon as I hear the word peaches, I have no less than three songs going through my head. How do I respond?
"I get my peaches down in Georgia"?
"Millions of peaches, peaches for me"?
"I really love your peaches wanna shake your tree"?
Honestly, it took me a second to realize what he was talking about and I finally said yeah sure, I like peaches.
Turns out, that was exactly what he had, an arm full of peaches. I was pretty excited to see that they were white peaches which are pretty much my favorite kind of peaches. Unlike the typical orange/yellow kind most people are familiar with, this kind has a white/pink skin and the flesh inside is more white than yellow, they are delicious.
He said that the peach tree in the front of his yard was full of them and if I wanted more I could come take some at any time. I've gotta be honest, I didn't think peaches grew in Michigan, I thought they were more of a down south sort of thing, but here I was with a arm full of peaches.
I took them inside and washed them up after I finished mowing the lawn. Then I sat down for lunch. After lunch, I had one of the peaches for dessert and they were delicious. @mrsbozz decided she needed to make something with the rest of them, so I diced them up and pitted them and got them ready for her.
She decided to make a cobbler with them, so after hitting them with some sugar, cinnamon, and some other love, she started working on the topping. We had already decided we were having grilled burgers for dinner, so I decided to start the grill a little early and use the cast iron to bake off the cobbler.
Here's what it looked like before it went on the grill and the golden brown deliciousness started to take place. It was pretty easy to put together. If I had to guess, the most time consuming part was cutting up all the peaches.
We decided to leave the skins on the peaches because that gave it a bit more of a rustic feel and we also figured it might be a little healthier given the vitamins and fiber that are probably in the skin.
This is a close up shot of it before it went on the grill.
I didn't really time it, I just figured I would give it a good fifteen to thirty minutes then I would check on it and rotate the cast iron dish so that the other side could be closer to the coals.
This little cast iron pan was given to me by a good friend of mine and I use it for quite a number of things. I have done a pretty good job of taking care of it and it is almost to the point where it has a non stick surface due to years and years of seasoning.
@mrsbozz and I use it pretty frequently for things like mac and cheese on the grill. It's the perfect size for the two of us and cast iron is just awesome in general.
After about 45 minutes or so, I decided to pull it off and this was the finished product. I couldn't have been happier with the way it turned out. The edges were bubbling and the pan was so hot it took a bit of maneuvering to get it into the house without burning my hands.
Thank goodness for the Ove Glove!
I was going to run down to the store and grab some vanilla ice cream to eat with it, but in the end I decided to take the healthier route and I just put some vanilla Greek yogurt on it. I had to throw the bowl in the microwave for just a few seconds to warm it back up by the time we finished eating our burgers.
It was delicious and it provided us dessert for the whole week.
The peaches were sweet and slightly tart and it paired really well with the yogurt and the topping that @mrsbozz put together for it. If you want the recipe, we found it online, and you can find it here.
The peaches were a really great surprise and the cobbler was an awesome way to celebrate one of the last nice weekends of Summers. In less than week Fall will be here and our focus will shift to falling leaves and preparations for Winter and the neighbors with the peaches will be on their way down to Florida until the warm weather comes back.
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