Feeding My Inner Book Worm

I'm a book junkie, really I have more books than I could read in a year, have been known to read more than two or three books at a time and in addition to being a die hard lover of actually, physical books am also completely in love with my Nook Color.  So when my sister said she wished she could find a book club I jumped on the bandwagon with her.  Instead of finding one (because it seemed like most in our area were reading crappy romance novels and such) we just started our own.  Now what started as an excuse to read more books is an excuse to spend more time with good friends and snack on tasty treats.  I know, you're shocked that between my love of books and cooking such an event would turn into an excuse to snack :)

This was all well and good for the first few meetings, i.e. pre-paleo challenge time.  Cheese, vino and crackers, sliced fruit and veggies abounded during that time.  This past week was my turn to host and suddenly I was feeling panicked, what do you serve a mix of paleo/non-paleo folks? Well since we're in strict challenge mode I couldn't tempt myself (or my sis) with cheese or wine (sad) and serving a plate of just straight up veggies and deli sliced turkey was too boring for my inner-chef.  So off I went, searching for crowd pleasing, challenge friendly appetizers and snacks.  The results, actually pretty good.  I ended up with two paleo friendly dips (below), sliced fruit and veggies, some olives, plain plantain chips, homemade pickled veggies, nuts, smoked, peppered pork tenderloin and nitrate-free sliced turkey. All in all not too bad, might even make a reprise for some of these things come Super Bowl Sunday!

First on deck we had a zucchini hummus, many versions of that exist on the web but the one I used was:

Paleo Hummus

3 small or 2 medium zucchini
1/2 cup Tahini
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
3 Tbsp Lemon Juice
1 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Cumin
1 Tbsp Minced Garlic

1. Peel zucchini very well so that no green is visible anymore.  Chop roughly and drop into food processor.
2. Put tahini, garlic and zucchini together in food processor and pulse until smooth.
3. Add olive oil, lemon juice, salt, cumin and pulse again until well incorporated.


The second recipe was a fruit dip made with coconut butter (yummy), coconut milk, peaches and lime.  I'll be messing with this recipe further as I think the texture could be less grainy (a product of my homemade coconut butter I suspect). 

1 cup Coconut Butter (feel free to buy this but it's pricey, or you can make it easily, instructions here)
1 can Whole Fat Coconut Milk (I believe the cans are appx 14-16 oz)
2 Whole peaches, pitted
1 Lime, peeled and seeded

1. Drop coconut butter, peaches and lime in the food processor. Pulse until well blended.
2. Slowly add coconut milk, I did this in batches so that it became well incorporated.

Coconut is my newest obsession, I warn you now because it'll likely begin appearing here regularly.  Sorry all I have is a pic of the whole spread on Wednesday night, not the individual dips.

Peaches for me...Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Free (I wish!)

Days pass, then weeks pass and somehow I have lost the ability to post regularly, I swear one of these days I'll reclaim some time and actually write on a weekly (or more) basis, for now I'll try again and hope it takes.

Summer has been really great thus far here in Texas, we've had some rain and the temperatures haven't been as scorching as they were last year (record breaking number of days over 100 degrees!). Farmers market trips have been bountiful and as an aspiring gardener I've been dutifully watching my veggies and awaiting the harvest (thus far only a handful of small tomatoes and two yellow squash).

One of the most refreshing (and anticipated) things that abounds early summer in Texas are peaches and a few weeks ago (mid-June) my boyfriend and I went down to Fredericksburg to sample the wares and enjoy perusing the shops (ok I loved the shops, he was a good trooper and was happiest when we found the brewery, which lets you buy by the cup and then, amazingly, you can walk around downtown with your beer!).

Fredericksburg is about an hour and a half west of Austin, the drive out on Hwy 290 is a glorious sampling of Hill Country views and once you arrive the town itself is full of amazing old homes, churches and a neat downtown shopping district full of boutique shops both old and new. As we made our way into Stonewall (a very tiny city just outside of Frederickburg) the song 'Peaches' by the Presidents of the United States started playing on repeat in my head, unfortunately for me no one was actually playing it in Fredericksburg so it stayed stuck! Each year Stonewall and Fredericksburg have their annual Peach festival, you haven't tasted peaches until you've eaten the sweet juicy fruit from this area! Every orchard has their own recipes for jam, ice cream, cobbler and other yummy items that they sell along with their peaches and every local you talk to will direct you to their own favorite orchard. So hard to choose! We ended up stopping at a few stands but far and away our favorite peaches were found at Engel's, the peaches were a beautiful shade of reddish peach and had such fragrant, juicy fruit we couldn't help but snack on one before driving off back to Austin.




Gillespie Count Courthouse (at the edge of Downtown Fredericksburg) at Christmas time.
















In honor of these sweet jewels I have a few peach recipes that I'd like to share, the first of which is a Peach Quick Bread, so tasty!



Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup fresh cut peaches, cubed into about 1 inch slices
1 cup pecan halves

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350F; spray 4 mini loaf pans with a light spray of nonstick cooking spray (or use 1 9x5 loaf pan, if you wish, but you'll need to bake the one loaf longer, likely about 50 minutes) and set aside.
2. Sift, through a sieve, the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a mixing bowl; set aside.
3. In another mixing bowl, blend together the brown sugar, ricotta, oil, eggs and vanilla; set aside.
4. Dice peach slices to make one cup. If your diced peaches seem wet (they likely will), pat dry with paper towel.
6. Add flour mixture to ricotta mixture all at once and stir just until flour is incorporated; do not over-stir.
7. Stir diced peaches and pecan halves into mixture.
8. Divide mixture between the 4 mini loaf pans and smooth tops.
9. Bake in preheated oven for 35-40 minutes, until tops are golden brown and a tester inserted in center of loaves comes out clean.
10. Let cool in pans for 20 minutes, then remove loaves from pans and let cool completely on a rack.


Enjoy!