Showing posts with label peach recipes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peach recipes. Show all posts

Monday, June 25, 2018

Sweet Peach Cream Cheese Muffins #MuffinMonday

Sweet Peach Cream Cheese Muffins celebrate the best of summer peaches with a wonderfully subtle tang. They are perfect for a summertime brunch, breakfast or snack.

Food Lust People Love: Sweet Peach Cream Cheese Muffins celebrate the best of summer peaches with a wonderfully subtle tang. They are perfect for a summertime brunch, breakfast or snack.


If you follow me on Instagram, you know I’ve been flitting all about this last week and a half, with a long weekend first in New York City and then a few short days in Quito, Ecuador. Now I am finally back in my hometown of Houston, enjoying time with even more family and taking advantage of local Texas produce, like my favorite crookneck yellow squash, young carrots with greens still attached, glowing golden beets, and especially the fragrant peaches.

In the Dubai grocery stores, peaches rarely smell like peach. They’ve been picked too young and flown in from goodness knows where. The Texas peaches actually smell as a good peach should. I stood in front of the peach bin picking many of them up, one by one, inhaling that glorious aroma and tucking them into a produce bag.

When I got home, my mom reminded me that peaches are her favorite fruit, to which I replied, I know! That’s why I’m making peach cream cheese muffins. I love cooking and baking for Mom because she always loves whatever I make.

Which brings me to this month’s Muffin Monday recipe.


Sweet Peach Cream Cheese Muffins

If you don’t have good fresh peaches, you can substitute frozen or, if you drain them well on some paper towels first, peaches canned in natural juice.

Ingredients
2 ripe but firm peaches (approximate whole weight of both: 10.5 oz or 300g)
2 cups or 250g flour
1 cup or 200g sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 oz or 113g cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup or 60g butter, melted and cooled, plus extra for the pan
1 large egg, at room temperature
3/4 cup or 180ml milk

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C. Prepare your muffin pan by buttering it or lining it with muffin cups.

Pit and dice your peaches, setting aside about 1/4 cup to top the muffins with before baking. The larger pile will go in the muffin batter.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together your flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.



Tip in the bigger pile of diced peaches and stir till the peach bits are well coated with the flour. Set aside.



In a medium bowl, mash the cream cheese with a fork, then pour in the cool, melted butter. Use the fork to mix the cream cheese and butter together until you have a mixture that looks like small soft curds.



Add in the egg and the milk and beat with the fork until combined. There will still be some tiny lumps of cream cheese.



Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold until they are just combined.



Divide the batter between the muffin cups in your prepared pan. Top with the reserved diced peach.



Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until the muffins are golden all around the edges and a toothpick comes out clean.



Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then remove the muffins and cool on a wire rack. These can be served warm or room temperature.

Enjoy!

Food Lust People Love: Sweet Peach Cream Cheese Muffins celebrate the best of summer peaches with a wonderfully subtle tang. They are perfect for a summertime brunch, breakfast or snack.


Check out the other lovely muffins my Muffin Monday friends are sharing today!



Muffin Monday
#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.

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Food Lust People Love: Sweet Peach Cream Cheese Muffins celebrate the best of summer peaches with a wonderfully subtle tang. They are perfect for a summertime brunch, breakfast or snack.
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Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Halloumi Freekeh Peach Salad #FoodieExtravaganza


This halloumi freekeh peach salad features pan-fried salty cheese, nutty freekeh and sweet peaches along with baby arugula and spicy cashews for a delightfully fresh and filling meal. Drizzle it with chili peach vinaigrette or your favorite dressing.

Food Lust People Love: This halloumi freekeh peach salad features pan-fried salty cheese, nutty freekeh and sweet peaches along with baby arugula and spicy cashews for a delightfully fresh and filling meal. Drizzle it with chili peach vinaigrette or your favorite dressing.

My self-imposed Salad Month starts in earnest with this beautiful salad that is perfect for a full meal for two or a starter for four. It’s what we call “fancy salad” at our house, which means it has greens, fruit, cheese and nuts. These vary by what we have on hand or feel like eating but fancy salad should contain those four essential ingredients.

But since this month's Foodie Extravaganza ingredient is peaches, that is the fruit I chose. If you love summer peaches, you are going to love this salad and this edition of Foodie Extravaganza. Make sure to scroll down to the bottom to see the other lovely peach recipes we have for you today.

In this case, the freekeh, another of the so-called ancient grains, adds a little more bulk, making this a light but filling salad, perfect for lunch or dinner just on its own. The day I put it together, my husband was away from home on a business trip, so I served it up and then added the chili peach vinaigrette to my portion. I ate the rest the next day and it was still fabulous.

If you’ve never cooked freekeh, check out this info and easy instructions on BBC Good Food. I cooked a whole cup, which gave me more than enough for this salad, as well as leftovers to add to another salad, another day. It’s lovely and nutty tasting, and rather reminds me of bulgur wheat.


Halloumi Freekeh Peach Salad

Ingredients – for 2 dinner salads or 4 starter salads
7 oz or 200g halloumi cheese
1-2 teaspoons olive oil
4 1/2 oz or 130g baby arugula or rocket
1 cup or 160g cooked cracked freekeh, well drained and cooled (More information here. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/glossary/freekeh)
3-4 small peaches (Mine were tiny! More like apricot size.) or 1-2 larger peaches
1/4 cup or 40g spicy cashews or your favorite nut
8-10 mint leaves, sliced thinly
Chili Peach Vinaigrette or your favorite sweet, tart and spicy dressing.

Method
Cut the halloumi into slices about 1/4 in or 1/2cm thick. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium high heat and drizzle in the olive oil. Pan-fry the halloumi just a minute or two on each side until both are golden.


Set aside. Pit and slice your peaches into wedges.


Assemble the salad starting with the arugula and top with the freekeh. Add in the golden halloumi broken roughly into bite-sized pieces, the sliced peaches and the cashews.

Stack the mint leaves one on top the other and slice thinly. Sprinkle over the salad.

Tip: This salad is great as leftovers if you haven’t added the dressing so I suggest that if you think you might not eat it all the day you make it, dress each serving, rather than dressing and tossing the entire salad.

Drizzle with chili peach vinaigrette or your favorite dressing.

Food Lust People Love: Chili Peach Vinaigrette - Don’t let the pale peach color of this lovely chili peach vinaigrette fool you. The flavor is tart, sweet and spicy, in my opinion, the perfect combination. Use it to dress your favorite salad or as a marinade for chicken or pork.

Enjoy!

Food Lust People Love: This halloumi freekeh peach salad features pan-fried salty cheese, nutty freekeh and sweet peaches along with baby arugula and spicy cashews for a delightfully fresh and filling meal. Drizzle it with chili peach vinaigrette or your favorite dressing.

Many thanks to this month's Foodie Extravaganza host, Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm. Check out all of our peach recipes!


Foodie Extravaganza celebrates obscure food holidays or shares recipes with the same ingredient or theme every month.

Posting day is always the first Wednesday of each month. If you are a blogger and would like to join our group and blog along with us, come join our Facebook group Foodie Extravaganza. We would love to have you!

If you're a reader looking for delicious recipes, check out our Foodie Extravaganza Pinterest Board!


Pin it! 

Food Lust People Love: This halloumi freekeh peach salad features pan-fried salty cheese, nutty freekeh and sweet peaches along with baby arugula and spicy cashews for a delightfully fresh and filling meal. Drizzle it with chili peach vinaigrette or your favorite dressing.

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Sunday, July 30, 2017

Chili Peach Vinaigrette

Don’t let the pale peach color of this lovely chili peach vinaigrette fool you. The flavor is tart, sweet and spicy, in my opinion, the perfect combination. Use it to dress your favorite salad or as a marinade for chicken or pork.


This spicy recipe kicks off the start of a big, bold adventure. As you read this, my younger daughter and I are on Day 1 of a cross-country trip from Massachusetts to California. We left the home of dear friends in Hingham, MA today, and are on the high road to upstate New York. If all goes to plan, we’ll hit the west coast on Tuesday, August 8th.

Since it’s the height of hot summer in the northern, I decided to do something different on this blog for August. I’ll be sharing some of our favorite fresh salads and dressings, beginning with this chili peach vinaigrette.

(Of course, since it’s not actually August yet, I’ll still have a Muffin Monday post for you tomorrow.)

Our accommodations are an eclectic mix of Airbnb homes, interstate motels and even one lodge in the Grand Canyon National Park. No doubt we’ll be craving salads the whole way. My Instagram feed is always a strange place to be, but follow along to travel with us from sea to shining sea.

Chili Peach Vinaigrette

Ingredients – Yields 1 cup or 240ml
6 oz or 170g ripe, firm peaches, washed, pitted and chopped (1 large peach or 3-4 small peaches)
1/2-1 small red chili pepper
1/4 cup or 60ml natural apple cider vinegar
1/8 cup or 30ml canola or other light oil
1 tablespoon honey, or more, if needed
1 tablespoon minced onion
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder (like Coleman's)
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

Method
Blend all the ingredients together in a blender or in an appropriate vessel with a hand blender until smooth.


Taste and add more honey, if necessary. If you are lucky your peach will be sweet enough and the extra honey will not be needed.

Store in a clean jar in the refrigerator.


Enjoy!

Love salads and unusual dressings? Check out some of my favorites.


Pin it! 

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