Simplest Dessert: Cobbler

Cobbler.  The easiest last-minute, throw-together, what-to-do-with-all-this-leftover-fruit recipe! 

Last weekend, Michael and I came back from North Carolina with half a basket of DELICIOUS South Carolina peaches.  After we had eaten as much as we could, we had to cut up the rest at the peak of ripeness and put them in the freezer.  Fortunately, our friends Roger and Martha had time to come up for dessert and drinks after we had dinner at 2Amy's (yum!) so we could use a couple of our delicious frozen peaches.

Of course, you can use whatever fresh or frozen fruit you have on hand.  We usually keep a bag of frozen mixed berries or wild blueberries in the freezer just in case we have a cobbler craving!

Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do! 

INGREDIENTS
1 stick of butter
1 cup of flour (we strongly suggest using Trader Joe's Multigrain Baking & Pancake Mix if you can get it)
1/4 cup rolled oats (optional)
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar (can be reduced to 2/3 cup)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 bag frozen fruit (or equivalent if using fresh fruit)

DIRECTION
Preheat oven to 425°.
While pre-heating, put the stick of butter in a 9x13 pan and into the oven until butter is melted.

Mix together the flour, oatmeal, milk, sugar, and vanilla.  It should be a pretty thin batter (similar to pancake batter) but if it's too runny, just put a little more flour in.  Now take the pan with the melted butter out of the oven and pour the batter into the butter.  Take your fruit and sprinkle it over the top.

Put it back in the oven and bake at 425° until golden brown (usually 30-35 minutes depending on oven temperature).  Just make sure the center is cooked.  The edges will be crispy and delicious.  Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Hot Town, Summer in the City

It's hot.  Really hot.  The kind of hot that makes you wonder how people live without air conditioning.

Today's a little cooler than yesterday.  Right now it's only 97 degrees with a heat index of 105 degrees.  Refreshing!

But the good thing about all this hot, humid, and record-setting summer weather is the great storms we've been getting in the evenings.  The photo above was taken on our balcony and, as you can see, the storm was isolated on top of the Nathional Cathedral with a little rainbow separating the gray and blue skies!  This scene literally only lasted about 30 seconds so I'm glad we had our camera handy.

We only stepped out on a balcony for 5 minutes today to water the plants and pick tomatoes and that was enough for me.  Now it's time to make a salad!

Bugs Bite

It's the time of year again... and I'm a mosquito magnet.  Well, I'm actually an equal opportunity bug bite magnet... if there's an insect that bites, it will be on my body.

So it's not surprising that I'm always looking for remedies to fight the itch!  This article in apartment therapy claims bar soap works!  Hmmm... who knew?  But the comments are a treasure trove of good suggestions!  Nail polish, ice, and vitamin B... I've heard of those remedies and they haven't worked well for me, but I'm interested to try onions, wilted cabbage or ammonia!

It's Not All Downhill After 30

July has been a whirlwind month so I'm sorry for the lack in blog posts.  We've been down in North Carolina trying to help out with Mama Merschat and we're very happy to hear she'll be coming home today (whew!).

So on a MUCH MUCH lighter note, I've been totally dreading my 30th birthday in a few months and was relieved when I stumbled across this article claiming women are 'at their most beautiful' at 31!

You have to love these British studies!

Women in their late 20s and early 30s are considered more attractive than fresh-faced eighteen and nineteen year olds, researchers found.

The findings, from a survey of the opinions of over 2,000 men and women, found that beauty was as much rooted in personality as appearance.

Celebrities currently at the prime age of 31 include TV presenter Christine Bleakley, Strictly Come Dancing judge Alesha Dixon and Danielle Lineker.

The average British woman is already married with children by her thirties.

When asked when women are at their most attractive, more people picked 31 than any other age.

Beauty was defined as being confident by 70 per cent of respondents, having good looks by 67 per cent and being stylish by 47 per cent.

This makes the upcoming 3-0 a little more tolerable!!

Farrell/Merschat Joint Family Vacation 2010

Just posted some pictures from our first Farrell/Merschat Family vacation last month here.  Mount Diablo, Chinatown, Yosemite, Tide Pools, Napa Valley and San Francisco... we did as much of Northern California as we could and I think we can call this trip a huge success!

Have a happy and safe 4th of July!

Sweet Nectar of Summer: Sangria

This weekend of 4th of July party hopping is the perfect time to whip up a batch of my famous Sangria.  Over many years of adding more fruit and trying new juice combinations, here's a Sangria recipe that is always a crowd-pleaser (originally taken from epicurious.com)

INGREDIENTS
5 bottles of red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon "Two Buck Chuck" from Trader Joe's work well)
1/2 cup brandy
1/4 cup Cointreau or Triple Sec
1 quart mango nectar (make mango ice cubes if you have leftover juice)
1 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup superfine sugar
1 quart chilled lemon-lime soda
Thinly sliced fruit of your choice: Apples, oranges, limes, any type of melon, kiwi, strawberries, blueberries, grapes (cut in half), peaches... you get the idea.  (This weekend I'm using watermelon, oranges, lemons, strawberries, blueberries, nectarines and grapes.)

DIRECTIONS
Note: The longer you let the fruit sit in the wine, the yummier it turns out.  I'm starting 2 days in advance.

Slice all the fruit.

Pour wine, liquor, juice and sugar into large bowl.  Stir.  Add fruit. (If you don't have a lot of room in your fridge - like me - I found that you can just pour 2-3 bottles into a bowl with the rest of the ingredients and just put it in the fridge.  Put the remaining bottles of wine in the fridge too so they are chilled when you add them to the punch bowl or cooler just before serving.)

Add lemon-lime soda and ice cubes right before serving.

Garnish wine glasses with with extra fruit or mint sprigs and serve to family, friends, and most importantly YOURSELF!

The Lost Symbol

With all the traveling to and from California for the very successful and fun Farrell/Merschat Family Vacation (more about that in a future post), I finally got to reading Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol that Aunt Arlene gave me for Christmas!  Overall, I'd give it a 7 out of 10 and would recommend it to any Dan Brown fans out there, but I still think Angels and Demons is still the best of the Robert Langdon series.

Don't get me wrong, The Lost Symbol is very entertaining (until the last 100 pages, which really dragged and left nothing to the imagination) and introduced very interesting concepts like noetic science and superstring theory.  But I think the formula was getting a little old after you've read the previous books and I feel like it read too much like he was writing the screenplay simultaneously.  That's pretty nit-picky but it crossed my mind more than a few times in the last part of the book.

And of course the best part of the book was that it was set in Washington, DC!  The House of the Temple is actually a block from where my knitting group meets and where my bus drops off.  I've always wanted to tour the place!  And it incorporates so much history of our founding fathers and of the government buildings and monuments, that's always so interesting and a Dan Brown trademark.  Can you imagine how much research he must have to do?

All in all, it's a solid, entertaining read and it was the perfect fun summer read for the trip!  Thanks again, Aunt Arlene!