Cooking

When we visited Italy a few weeks ago, we stopped at a wonderful farmer's market in Jesolo. We had lots of fun shopping there, and it was pretty hard to turn away from so many beautiful, delicious smelling, fresh fruits and vegetables. We ended up buying a crate of peaches and a crate of sauce tomatoes, as well as many other items. But, these crates were a great deal, and my mind was already abuzz with ideas for how to use these amazing fruits.
The day after we got home, I busily searched the internet to find a recipe for peach pie. I found one on Suite101.com
Fresh Peach Pie Recipe

* Double pie crust (9 inch size)
* 5 cups of fresh ripe peaches (sliced)
* 1 tsp lemon juice
* 1 cup sugar
* ¼ cup regular flour
* ¼ tsp cinnamon
* 2 TBS butter

Directions:

1. You can make your own pie crust or get a frozen double crust of refrigerator crusts. If you’re not making your own, the pie crusts in the refrigerator section taste more like homemade than the freezer types.
2. If using prepared crusts, let them thaw out or warm up.
3. Mix the lemon juice with the fresh peaches. Stir a little bit to get the lemon juice mixed in.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together the sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Mix well.
5. Stir the sugar/flour mix in with the peaches.
6. Pour the peach mixture in a pie crust.
7. Dot the butter evenly around on top of the peach mix in the crust.
8. Top with the second crust.
9. Use a knife to make slits in the top pie crust.
10. Flute the edges of the crust. In other words, mash the edges together and then use your fingers to make little ridges like you see on pie crusts in the store.
11. Bake in a preheated 425 degree F oven for around 40 minutes. Check often near the end of the baking time as ovens can vary. The middle of the pie should be a pretty buttery brown, and you’ll see bubbles in the knife slits.
12. You’ll probably need to put strips of tin foil or a pie edge protector around the outside edge of the pie the last 15 minutes or so. Fluted edges tend to get darker than the center on homemade pies.

I used Martha Stewart's recipe for Pate Brisee, which is delicious, and a pretty fail-proof pie crust. It worked fabulously with the peach pie.

It was a sweet and delicious way to prolong our vacation memories!

I also made a really yummy pasta sauce with all those many sauce tomatoes. It was really easy to make a delicious homemade tomato sauce.
I first washed and removed the stem and seeds from the many, many tomatoes.

Then, I chopped them.

Pureed them in the food processor.


Sauteed lots of garlic and onions in olive oil in the stock pot.

Then, I added the tomato sauce, basil, salt, and some italian seasoning. Simmer for a few hours, and that's all! Delicious, wonderful tomato sauce! I froze it in portions. This way, we'll be able to enjoy yummy sauce made from farmer's market tomatoes for months to come!