Strawberry season totally passed me by. I'm not sure what world I was in when it happened. Probably stressing about if the house thing would ever happen. Who knows. Sometimes I still forget that the Virginia growing season is not the same as the Oregon one. I somehow still associate strawberries with the July that I was pregnant with Briton when I made gallons of jam to keep myself occupied. But alas, here we are with one measly jar of strawberry jam in our pantry and strawberry season come and gone. In a last ditch attempt to see if local berries could be had I drove the kids out to the pick your own place where I got strawberries last year. If nothing else, I knew that peaches were in.
The strawberries, as I had feared, were long gone, but the kids and I spent a happy hour picking ripe juicy (on my part) and not so ripe (Briton's) and not ripe at all but low to the ground (Evie) peaches. In all we brought home about 9 pounds of yellow peaches plus a small bag of white peaches from the farm store. Evelyn ate both hers and her brother's and her father's white peach though some sneakiness (as in every time I turned around yesterday she had climbed up on the counter to sneak another and then hid in a corner to snarf it down before I could take it away) but even with her pilfering the best of them, we still have tons of peaches. And while I'm deciding if I want to make peach butter or canned peaches or peach jam, I'm taking full advantage of the largess.
Last night I made another round of pasties for dinner and since I was rolling out crust anyway, I went ahead and made a peach tart for dessert. I wanted something that gave the flavor of the incredible grilled brandy peaches my mom made last week when I visited (which I'll have to get the recipe for and post because it was divine) but I didn't want a soggy crust which often seems to happen with juicy peaches. After skimming through a few recipes I decided to improvise a semi-custard base for the tart to help soak up all that lovely juiciness. Yumm.
Peach and Rum Tart
Peel and thickly slice three large peaches and sprinkle them with a tablespoon of rum (I used run that had a vanilla bean soaking in it
Melt 3 T butter and mix in 1 cup of sugar. In a separate bowl whisk together 2 egg yolks and 2 T flour and then combine with the sugar butter mix. Add a T or so of rum to the mix (or Brandy, but I was out) until it is thin enough to be pourable but not super runny.
Blind bake the pie crust of your choice in a tart pan with a removable bottom then lay the peach slices in circles and pour the egg/sugar/rum/flour mix evenly over the top. Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes or until the filling is set and golden. Sprinkle with coarse sugar before serving.
This would be great with vanilla ice cream. We didn't have any, but I could just imagine the combination....Divine.