Chika's Peach Desert Recipes

The weather in Tucson, Arizona in summer time, especially in July, is very hot and humid.

Despite the 105 degree temperature outside, my master and the rest of the family decided this past weekend to seek cooler weather by leaving town.

So, they left for the day and went to Apple Annie's Orchard in Willcox, Arizona where the temperature was only 93 degrees.

I, on the other hand,  elected to stay home and, with the indoor air conditioning set at a comfortable 78 degrees, settled into my bed and prepared to watch the all day I Love Lucy marathon on television.

Things were nice and peaceful until the telephone rang later that afternoon.

It was my master informing me that they had picked twelve pounds of peaches and were wondering if I would bake a pie for them.

As usually happens, the phone call arrived right in the middle of the best part of the show and, wanting to get off the phone and back to my show, I agreed to bake the pie but told him to pick up a couple of frozen pie shells as it is very difficult to kneed and roll out pie dough with paws.

I am an old fashioned type of cook who basically mixes things up by instinct.  I don't pay too close attention to little details like exact measurements but things always seem to come out well for me.

Given that not only has no one gotten sick or died from my cooking but that they keep cook some more for them leads me to believe that I am doing something right.

However, knowing that many people prefer more precise instructions than a dash of this and a gob of that, I have decided to provide detailed, step by step instructions for my peach pie and peach cobbler.

Who knows, maybe I can give up cooking and retire to writing cook books.

Here are the simple first steps listed below. I have also had myself photographed doing each of the following steps below for those who prefer pictures to text instructions.

1 Pre heat your oven to 350 degrees

2 Select 4 to 5 peaches (I choose 5) - they should look ripe (red and yellow color) but they can be hard and just short of full ripeness.

3 Set your frozen pie crusts from the grocery store out to thaw for about 20 minutes. As I stated above, I prefer the store brought crusts both because it saves the time it takes to mix, kneed and roll the crust out when you make your own. Also, for a small dog like me with paws to hold on to a rolling pin much less press down hard enough with it to roll out a good crust. The frozen pie crusts (which are uncooked) can be found in the freezer section of most grocery stores and are usually sold two to a package.  An additional benefit is that these pie crusts come in their own pan which you can then throw away after eating the pie thereby having less clutter in your kitchen cupboards.

4 Thaw both crusts as we will use one for the bottom crust and one for the top. After thawing, take a fork and poke holes in the bottom and sides of the crust as this will allow air underneath the crust to escape during cooking rather than having it cause bubbles to form beneath the crust and mess up your pie.

5 After poking holes in the crust with your fork place the pie shell in the oven to bake for 15 to 20 minutes. The frozen pie shells from the store come uncooked. You want to slightly brown the dough so that it is firm and dry when you place the moist peaches and semi-liquid cream mixture in it. If you don't do this the moisture from the peaches and cream mixture will prevent the crust from baking properly and the bottom crust of the pie will be soggy and messy to cut and eat.

6 Retrieve your sugar and flour from the pantry. Because both my master and Bella are trying to lose weight, I also use a sugar substitute, such as Splenda, to substitute for part of the sugar. I use about half and half sugar and sugar substitute, but because sugar substitutes tend to be sweeter than regular sugar the final amount after mixing the two is less than if I am using sugar alone. Also, fully ripened peaches (when the peach itself is jucy and soft) tend to be sweeter so I use somewhat less than a full cup of sugar with these when using sugar alone and even less than that when using a mixture of sugar and sugar substitute. However, for today's pie the peaches were still hard (like an apple) and not fully ripe so I used just under a cup of sugar and sweetener mixture as these less than ripe peaches are less sweet.

7 Line up your ingredients and mixing utensils. For this pie you will need:

- 4 to 5 peaches

- 2 pie shells (one for the bottom and one for the top of the pie

- 1 cup (8 ounces) of yogurt - I prefer low fat, peach flavored yogurt but you can use regular yogurt as well and can substitute vanilla flavored or just plain yogurt. You can also use a cup of heavy cream which is what the original recipe I found in a 19th century cookbook called for. However, it is difficult to find heavy cream in stores these days (or, so I am told). Like many poor peasant cooks before me, I sometimes have to improvise when called for ingredients are not available and this is not bad as I often end up with new creations or variations such as this one.

- 3 tablespoons of flour

- 1 cup of sugar. As stated above you can vary this somewhat depending upon both your taste and the sweetness of your peaches. Also, as stated above you can replace some (or even all, although I have never done this) of the sugar with a sugar substitute.

- 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

- 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

- A dash of milk to be used only if the cream mixture turns out to be too thick although this had never happened to me and I have never had to add any milk.

By the time you have completed all of this, the pie crust should be ready to be removed from the oven.  With that done and your ingredients in front of you, you can move on to the next step of converting the ingredients into a delicious pie.

With everything in place, we are now ready to assemble our pie.

1) First wash the peaches. Washing before using or eating any type of fresh produce is a very good idea. This not only helps to wash away any residue from chemical pesticides used to protect the produce from insect pests during the growing process but also helps to remove natural bacteria that can be found on the produce. Washing is especially important if you are the lazy type who prefers to leave the skin on the peaches and simply slice them for the pie. But it is still a good idea even if you plan on peeling, as I do, the peaches before slicing and putting them into the pie shell.

2) After washing, peel the skin off the peaches. I find that a simple potato peeler works just fine.

3) Next, slice the peaches and place them in the pie shell. So called freestone peaches work best for this as with the freestone peach varieties the fruit or flesh of the peach easily separates from the pit (seed). Of course my master didn't bother to check this and ended up picking a cling stone variety of peach in which the fruit clings tightly to the peach pit. Oh well, a good chihuahua cook works with what she is given and forges on.

Cling stone peaches aside, a real problem arose at this point and that was that I had not specified that my master purchase deep dish rather than regular size pie shells. With five peaches pealed and three of them sliced and placed in the pie shell I suddenly discovered that there was no room for the remaining two peaches let alone the yogurt cream filling.

Fortunately, I discovered one deep dish frozen pie shell buried under some steaks in the back of the freezer. I should have checked the freezer the day before when I received the phone call and I also should have specified deep dish when my master called but my mind was on the I Love Lucy episode I was watching and not on this out of the blue request that I bake a pie.

Well, as they say, no use crying over spilled milk, or, in this case over having ordered the wrong size pie shell.

I quickly thawed, poked holes in and placed the deep dish shell in the oven. Then, not wanting to waste the extra two peeled peaches or the already prepared regular size pie shell, I had to quickly think of a use for them. Checking the pantry and refrigerator, I located ingredients needed to make a peach crisp (actually an apple crisp but since my problem involved peaches I will be substituting peaches for apples in the recipe. Instead of mixing and baking it in a dish, which is the traditional way, I decided to bake it in the extra pie shell. As I said before, a good cook knows how to think on all four feet and improvise when needed.

With the problem solved and the deep dish shell ready for use, I returned to making the pie (directions for making the cobbler will appear below the pie instructions as I can improvise as well with my writing as with my baking).

4) Returning to the pie we now mix together in a small bowl the yogurt, flour, sugar/sweetener mixture and vanilla. Stir it with a spoon until well blended and smooth. Add a tiny bit of milk if it is too thick but avoid this as possible as we are making a pie and not a soup.

5) Sprinkle the cinnamon lightly over the peaches in the pie shell.

6) Pour the yogurt cream mixture over the peaches.

7) Remove, and this can be difficult, the uncooked pie shell from the other pan and place it over the pie covering the peaches and cream. This is not easy and the dough is likely to tear on you. But cover and patch it as best you can. As you can see from the picture, even a master baker like me has trouble with this. But, hey - this is not an entry in a contest, but something good to eat so taste, not necessarily perfect looks, is our goal.

8) With a sharp knife, carefully slice a few holes in the top crust of the pie. This will allow air to escape and hopefully prevent the ingredients from boiling over and making a mess in the oven.

9) The contents of a pie will sometimes boil over and leak out of the crust. When the contents leak like this the spill onto the bottom of the oven where they become a baked on mess. To avoid this, I like to place the pan containing the pie into a larger pan which will catch any drippings. As a further precaution I line the bottom of the larger pan with aluminum foil so that any droppings fall on the foil which can be thrown into the trash when done thereby avoiding having to clean the outside pan - smart bakers always try to avoid extra work.

10) Place the pan containing the pie into the oven that has been preheated to 350 degrees and let it cook for 40 to 60 minutes.

The original 19th century recipe said that this would serve 6 - 8 people. I guess 19th century people were closer in size to chihuahuas or, at least had appetites closer to those of a chihuahua. My guess today is that this will serve 4 - 5 people (or 1 - 2 teenage boys).

Unless the entire pie is consumed in a single sitting, store any unused portions in the refrigerator until ready to eat again.

While the pie is cooking we will turn to the peach crisp that was an unintended, but delicious, consequence of this endeavor.

With the pie baking in the oven, we now turn to the peach crisp.

This is so easy that even a puppy can make it.  It is relatively fast and you can probably substitute almost any fruit of your choice.

Ingredients:

  - 6 peaches.  Use 6  if you are going to make this in a two quart baking dish.  Because of the size of the pie shell, I ended up using just 4 peaches.

  - 1 cup of flour

  - 3/4 cup of brown sugar.  I didn't bother substituting any sugar substitute sweeteners as there are no brown sugar substitutes.  However, brown sugar for all practical purposes is about the same as regular sugar except that it has not been refined as much as regular white sugar.  So you could probably substitute an artificial sweetener for some of the brown sugar.

  -  1 teaspoon of baking powder

  -  3/4 teaspoon of salt

  -  1 egg - preferably large but I used what was available in the refrigerator and that was a medium size egg and it worked just as well.

   -  1/2 cup of margarine (or real butter if you prefer)

  -  1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

  -  1 two quart baking dish or one pie shell previously previously prepared but not used for a pie because it was too small for the recipe.

Mixing and Preparation:

1)  Peel and slice peaches and then place them in the pie shell.

2)  Mix together with a spoon the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and egg.  This will take a little time (a minute or two) and effort to get the entire combination mixed together with only the egg for moisture.

3)  Cover the peaches with the mixture.  If you are using semi-ripe peaches as I was and cooking it in a crust, you might want to pour the peaches into the mixture and mix them  thoroughly with the egg mixture as completely coating the peaches with the egg mixture will make up for the lack of sweetness in the semi-ripe peaches. 

4)  Place the mixture and peaches back in the pie shell and smooth it out.

5)  Place the 1/2 cup of margarine or butter in a microwaveable container and cover it (so that it won't splatter and leave a mess for you to clean) and microwave it long enough to melt the butter (it should only be a dozen seconds or so).

6)  Carefully pour (this is very hot so don't spill it on yourself) the melted margarine/butter evenly over the contents of the pie shell.

7)  Sprinkle the cinnamon evenly over the top of the mixture.

8)  Place it in the oven and bake it for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

It is best served warm with a dollop of whipped topping.  It also tastes very good when served at room temperature with a dollop of whipped cream.  Serves about the same number of people as the pie.

Unless the entire peach crisp is consumed in a single sitting, store any unused portions in the refrigerator until ready to eat again.

My son and I have recently set up an account at Lulu.com which provides free publishing tools and a platform for selling the books, calendars and other materials members publish. Lulu's services are free until you sell your item at which time they deduct a commission from the sales price and, in the case of print on demand paper products, also deduct all costs associated with the materials, labor and shipping.

Our first product is Chika's calendar - she posed for the photos and took credit as author andwe did all the worked as she napped (see photo above).

Click Here for Chika's Dog Trivia for 2011 calendar.