Peach Pie

Peaches are my favorite fruit (sans the furry skin) and peach pie is my favorite pie. It's hard to come by and peach season always seems so short to me, but our farmer's market has been carrying some LARGE and beautiful peaches so Samantha and I decided to make a cobbler - a healthy version, of course!

The story starts with my first issue of "Cooks Illustrated" magazine. I'm not sure if someone sent this to me as a gift or if it is just a one-time thing. But the magazine looks old fashioned, thin, and frankly, un-inspiring. But alas, I opened it up to take a look and by the time I finished it, I felt like I took a cooking class. Wow is it educational. It takes you back to the basics and it is written almost in blog style. I love it.

There was an article called "Improving Peach Cobbler" and while it is not a "healthy" recipe, it was inspiring enough to decide to embark on a better version. I think the recipes in here are a good place to start - since they have taken a lot of time to get the "chemistry" of the dish down - you can make slight alterations and learn on your own how to do them in a more healthy way.

So Samantha and I went out and bought our batch of juicy peaches. They recommended 6-7 of their "large" peaches - which amounted to just over 4 lbs of fruit. I know this because they were $2 a pound and the whole tab was $9. WOW. Okay - so healthy peach pie is already breaking the bank.

Then Samantha went to work. She peeled and sliced (thank you thank you!) all the fruit and it was a perfect amount for a shallow glass pie dish. Then followed the following recipe:

Samantha's Peach Cobbler

Slice peaches (not too thin, not to thick....the thinner you slice, the more juicy the cobbler is)

1/4 cup maple syrup (the real raw stuff...not Log Cabin!)

1 T corn starch

(Let this sit while you prepare the cobbler, or even longer. If any juices collect, drain them out.)

Topping:

1 C oats (best to go with non quick cooking oats b/c you want the texture to remain in tact as much as possible)

1/2 C whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 C honey

1 t cinnamon

1/3 C butter (softenend, not melted)

1/3 C yogurt (I recommend the whole fat greek strained yogurt - it keeps it thicker, but any non-sweetened yogurt is fine)

Directions

Prepare oven at 400 degrees

Stir topping together and spread it over the peaches to create a top-layer crust.

Bake for 20-25 minutes

Let cool for 20-30 mins and eat!

We enjoyed it with a dollop of soy ice cream. Yum!

Even Samantha's mom and brother (Marlene and Aaron) liked this pie so it is a SURE winner. We tried it a couple different ways and the above recipe seems to work best. It is tricky to keep the peaches from getting too runny. I think what we found was that the less ripe peaches get less runny/mushy but are a little more tart. You can cut them a little thinner just to make sure they aren't too cruncy. But if you use soft/ripe peaches, cut them thicker to avoid the overwhelming juice syrup. Also - stick with the yellow peaches, the white ones don't look as pretty in a pie!