Beach Reads

Last week I went to the beach with my family. An annual trip, always an adventure- this year in a new location. We were still in Rehoboth, just a new house- it was weird after being in the last house for 15 years!!! This year there was 13 of us at the fullest 2 days- which is a low number for our gang!! It wasn't the best year of weather- but I got a lot of reading in. Guess I'm not so bad at reading after all...
Book #1: Baby Proof by Emily Giffin. This is the first book of hers that I've read- i'm looking forward to her others. It was a quick read, highly entertaining- classic "chic lit." A good way to start. Gotta build that reading momentum.

Book #2: (my fav of the trip) My Life in France by Julia Child. I had read Julie and Julia by Julie Powell when it first came out a few years ago and have since been quite interested in Julia Child. I picked this up in January and finally got around to reading it. It was great!! I recommend it to anyone who likes cooking, France, French Food, international travel, memoirs, history (stories about the 50s-70s), and strong fascinating women. she didn't start cooking til she was 37!!! I was already super excited for Julie and Julia (the movie) and now I can't wait!! It comes out next week!!

Book #3: The Last Lecture. I had seen the documentary on Randy Pausch back in the fall and my mom had loaned me the book. It was a quick read- and covered a lot of what I had seen on the doc., but it was good. Touching. He was a Carnegie-Mellon prof diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and this is the premise of his "last lecture" at CMU (which is a series they have- not just b/c he was ill) and the advice that he's leaving his students, his children, the masses. I recommend.

Book #4: This one I am only about 60 pages into..... but it's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. A memoir (my fav. genre right now) about Kingsolver and her family who leave dry AZ behind to move to rural VA to plant and harvest and live a year on local foods. Foods that they know where they come from. Living in season. It's something I try to do (though at a much less noble scale) and I am enjoying it so far. Though Barbara does not crack me up the way that Julia does....

I'm leaving Thursday for my next vaca- flying to CA (SF area) to visit my Air Force cousin and her husband before they depart for Guam. I already packed my book in my carryon! Photos to come (I took NONE at the beach)

Berry Cobbler

So, I've mentioned my berry cobbler and have had a request for the recipe, so I'm sharing it with the world. But you have to get the back story first.

This recipe is from my great-grandmother from Texas. My "Poppy" was born and raised on a ranch outside of Houston, Texas. My grandmother "Nanny" grew up in Holidaysburg, PA (you win a prize if you know where that is). They met in California during WWII. Poppy was in the Air Force, and Nanny went out there with her sister to work in an office. She always says "things were different during the war." They got married in Harrisburg, and then moved to Houston after the war because that is where Poppy could get a job. Having grown up on the farm, his mother was always cooking fresh foods and desserts from the farm. She (the original Nanny Smith) made a fresh dessert, I think, every day. My Poppy was used to that, so my Nanny learned his mother's recipes for her new husband. After 3 years in TX my Nanny got really homesick and so they came to PA "for a trial period" and never left. But she brought the TX recipes with her and now we all use them! It's kind of a rough recipe b/c she just passed them along verbally to my nanny.

Nanny Smith's Berry Cobbler

make a pie crust for a 1 layer pie- but use milk instead of water. (refrigerate or put in freezer til ready to use)

mix in a sauce pan: 2/3 to 1 cup of sugar, 1 tbsp corn starch, 1 cup already-boiling water. Stir in water gradually, and bring to a boil for 1 minute- keep stirring.

After 1 minute add in 3 cups of fruit (any fruit that you can bake in a pie will work, but my FAV is black raspberries. my family also does it w/ peaches a lot)

now roll out your pie dough and cut into squares (about 1 inch - 1 1/2 inch)

in a dish (i used an 8x8, but you can use smaller for a thicker cobbler) make a layer of fruit/sauce. sprinkle over top 1 tbsp of butter (in quarters), 1/4 tsp vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg, then add a layer of crust squares.

* a time saver is rather than adding the vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and butter into the layers, you can just mix some of each into the fruit/sauce mix

repeat this for 3 layers, finishing with squares on top (save the middle squares from your rolled out dough- they're the prettiest), and press down on the squares gently for the juice to come over some of them.

Bake at 400 degrees for 50 minutes.

DELISH!!

here is what was left of mine when I decided to take a picture....

more cooking!!!

I have been on a roll lately... preparing more foods! It's really quite shocking for me, as the person who most nights has cheese and crackers or cereal for dinner. Summer does that to me- all the fresh things and being outside- I'm much more interested in preparing foods. This weekend I've had a few events, so I made a double batch of pasta salad (with fresh basil) and another tomato-mozz-basil salad. And I took a pic!!! I think it turned out to be quite tasty!