For National Peach Month, August, try one of the oldest peach recipes: peaches and cream.

If you read novels or short stories from centuries past, you’ve no There are many ways to make peaches and cream

In a book of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short stories, The Basil And Josephine Stories, he introduces Basil, a fictionalized version of his younger self. One of Basil’s favorite foods: peaches and cream.

Is peaches and cream as simple as it sounds?

Yes, if you have juicy, ripe peaches, waiting to be sliced into a bowl and covered with heavy cream (or in the U.K., clotted cream).

Otherwise, poach or bake the peaches first.

The following recipe has a Southern spin, with bourbon and brown sugar.
 
 
RECIPE: PEACHES & CREAM

Ingredients For 2 Servings

 
Preparation

1. TOSS the peaches with 1 tablespoon brown sugar and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. Set aside until juicy, about 30 minutes (the sugar helps to extract the juices). Meanwhile…

2. WHIP 1 cup heavy cream until it has begun to thicken; then beat in 4 teaspoons brown sugar. Add the bourbon and beat until soft peaks form. Layer the peaches and cream in dessert glasses and top with toasted pecans.
 
 
FANCIER PEACHES & CREAM RECIPES

For more elaborate preparations:

Add caramel sauce, as in this recipe from Spache The Spatula. The peaches and cream are drizzled with vanilla bean-zinfandel caramel sauce.

[2] A fancier approach: jumbo macaron on clotted cream, filled with peaches and vanilla ice cream (photo courtesy Bestia | LA).

Your own take. How else would you present fresh peaches and cream? Let us know!
 
 

[2] If you can borrow a tap dispenser, it’s more convenient than pitchers (photo courtesy Flavor & The Menu).

Beyond water, sparkling water and our cache of diet soft drinks, we’re making a few quarts of agua fresca. In Spanish, agua fresca means fresh water; but in culinary terms, the water is combined with fresh fruit juice. The result: refreshing cold drinks that are sold by street vendors and at cafés throughout Latin America.

A traditional agua fresca is an infused, sweetened water, flavored with fruits and/or vegetables. Nonalcoholic and noncarbonated, in the U.S. a similar drink is called a cooler.

Agua fresca is also available bottled, in numerous flavors, and is made from scratch at home.

The recipes can include a combination of fruits or veggies, flowers, herbs and/or spices, cereals, seeds, even almond flour. The result is often a more complex layering of flavors than American lemonade and limeade.

Agua de horchata, a very popular recipe, is made of ground raw rice spiced with cinnamon.

Other ingredients include flowers (hibiscus), herbs (sorrel), grains (alfalfa, barley, oats, rice), nuts and seeds (almond flour, chía). Try incorporating some of these after you’re already pleased with a basic fruit and/or vegetable recipe.
 
 
HAVE AN AGUA FRESCA PARTY

Make a few flavors and supply a choice of garnishes.

Depending on your guests, a choice of clear spirits—cachaca, gin, tequila, vodka—may also be welcome.

 
For a vegetable component, cucumber is the most popular (with lime and mint or pineapple). But you can turn to other juices: carrot juice and apple or pineapple, beet juice and berries, etc.

Keep it light: save the kale and broccoli for the juice bar.

Chill the drinks in the fridge, but also have a supply of ice cubes.

As an on-trend American update, you can substitute coconut water for all or part of the water in your recipe, especially delicious in this pineapple agua fresca recipe with lemongrass.

Here’s the agua fresca recipe template. Unleash your inner mixologist and mix different flavors of juice, to create your own signature recipes.

A melon tap turns any large, seedless watermelon into a keg (or punch bowl, for a younger crowd), ideal for filling with watermelon-based beverages.

Simply hollow out the melon, insert the tap and fill it with your beverage of choice.

A fun element at a gathering, your guests will have a memorable time of dispensing their drinks from a watermelon.

Serve it as a finale to the last event of the summer.

Just fill the watermelon with watermelon agua fresca.

For a hit of alcohol, you can find watermelon-flavored vodka from Smirnoff, Three Olives, Pinnacle (Cucumber Watermelon), UV (Salty Watermelon) and others.

In the fall, you can do the same with a pumpkin and apple cider (and apple vodka, of course).

[1] Peach panzanella as a salad course and [2] a main course, with added mozzarella and prosciutto (photos courtesy Good Eggs). Fragrant ripe peaches [3] are a versatile ingredient at every meal (photos courtesy Pompeian.

August is National Peach Month, honoring the most popular stone fruit: the peach. (Other stone fruits, in the genus Prunus, include almonds, apricots, cherries, nectarines, peaches and the cross-bred apriums, plumcots and pluots.)

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PEACHES

The peach originated in China and has been cultivated at least since 1000 B.C.E. Peaches traveled west via the silk roads to Persia, earning them the botanical name Prunus persica. There, they were discovered by Alexander the Great, who mentions half a dozen types and brought them to Greece.

By 322 B.C.E. Greece was growing peaches, and by 50 to 20 B.C.E., Romans grew them. They called them Persian apples, and sold them for the modern equivalent of $4.50.

The Romans transported peach trees to other parts of their empire.

Columbus brought peach trees to America on his second and third voyages. The Spaniards brought peaches to South America, the French introduced them to Louisiana, and the English took them to their New England colonies.

To this day China remains the largest world producer of peaches, with Italy second. California produces more than 50% of the peaches in the United States (and grows 175 different varieties). And so many peaches are grown in Georgia that it became known as the Peach State.

Here’s more about peaches.

Over the next week or two, we’ll be presenting a menu of peachy recipes, starting with…

RECIPE #1: PEACH PANZANELLA

Panzanella, an Italian bread salad that uses up day-old bread, is one of our favorites, tailored to the bounty of each season. Panzanella can be sweet or savory. In the winter, with a paucity of fresh fruit, recipes tend to be savory (here’s a classic winter panzanella recipe).

But when the season gives you so much fresh fruit, sweeter panzanellas call.

Panzanella is one of those delicious foods invented by necessity: Poor people needed to get another meal from bread that had gone stale (the history of panzanella).

In summer grilling season, juicy, caramelized peaches and smoky grilled bread unite in this summer panzanella. These recipes, for a salad course and a dinner salad, are from Good Eggs. They were inspired by Julia Sherman’s new book, Salad for President.

No grill? Broil the peaches and bread cut-side up in the oven.
Ingredients For 4 Servings

 
Additions For Dinner Salad (photo #2)

Preparation

1. PREPARE a very hot charcoal fire or preheat a gas grill to medium. No grill? Use a grill pan in the oven)

2. CHOP the shallot finely. Cut off two large slices of sourdough. Set both aside.

3. MAKE the dressing: Whisk together 2 teaspoons vinegar, 1 tablespoon oil and the shallot in a small bowl. Set aside.

4. HALVE the peaches and remove the pits. In a large bowl, toss the peach halves and optional ingredients with 1 tablespoon olive oil; season with a sprinkle of salt and freshly ground pepper. Drizzle another tablespoon of olive oil over both sides of the bread slices and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

5. OIL the grill grate and let it heat up for a minute or two. Arrange the bread slices on the outer edges of the grill grate and the peaches, cut-side down, in the center. Set the peach bowl aside but don’t rinse it.

6. GRILL the bread on each side for for 1 minute, or until lightly toasted. Grill the peaches until the bottoms are caramelized and lightly charred, about 3 minutes. Flip the peaches and cook for another 3 minutes. If using an oven, broil both the bread and the peaches cut side up.

7. REMOVE the toasted bread from the grill, allow it to cool enough to handle, and tear it into bite-sized pieces (we prefer to cut it into large croutons). Cut each peach half in half again (or if the peaches are larger, cut them into into large chunks). Place them in the peach bowl along with the torn bread.

8. DRIZZLE the dressing over the peaches and bread, and toss. Let the panzanella marinate for 5-10 minutes. Taste and adjust the salt and pepper, as desired.

9. GARNISH with torn basil and serve.

 
 
MORE PANZANELLA RECIPES

Most of us use particular condiments on foods out of habit. The convention differs among countries.

 
Ice cream toppings around the world vary as well.

 
On the last day of National Ice Cream Month (July), we went on an adventure by looking around the kitchen to see what we could put on ice cream, beyond our standard inventory of chocolate and caramel sauces.

You can have the same adventure. Look beyond those and the other usual sauces (butterscotch, peanut butter, raspberry) or garnishes (candies, cookies, fruit, nuts), to what you may logically not think of.

We invited some friends and a few quarts of vanilla and chocolate ice cream, to pair with our atypical ice cream toppings. We also found some “matching garnishes” and made a sundae event of it all.
 
WHAT WE FOUND IN OUR KITCHEN

BIRCH SYRUP, which has similar uses as maple syrup (more about it). Garnish: Corn Flakes.

CHOPPED VEGETABLES, like raw corn kernels and sugar snap peas. We tried a mix of raw corn, popcorn and crunchy Inca corn kernels (like Corn Nuts), and had a heck of a corn sundae. These were the garnishes; we topped the ice cream with some golden syrup. If only we could have found some corn ice cream (recipe #1 and recipe #2).

COCONUT SYRUP, a popular pancake syrup and sweetener in Hawaii. Toss on some flaked coconut.

DATE SYRUP, called silan in Arabic, which refers to what we would call date honey, date molasses or date syrup. Garnishes: chopped dates and other dried fruits.

[2] Red beans, marshmallows, gelatin, and more in Japan (photo courtesy Sumally).

GOLDEN SYRUP, the pancake syrup of choice in the U.K., also used on ice cream (more about it). Garnish: anything you want.

HONEY: Plain honey is fine, but we loved using our flavored honeys (chile, cinnamon, lavender). Garnish: fresh fruit.

LIGHT MOLASSES, a.k.a. sweet molasses, also used as pancake syrup or a sweetener, especially in the south and other areas that had no maple trees. Garnish: anything.

MAPLE SYRUP: We used a walnut and raisin garnish. Trail mix works, too. And those crunchy Corn Flakes.

OLIVE OIL: Mild or grassy olive oils (link) make a delightful drizzle. Top with some crunchy sea salt.

PIE FILLING: No extra garnish is required, but we threw on some granola.

SIMPLE SYRUP, the flavored syrups used at coffee shops to make your hazelnut (or other flavor) latte. Garnish: anything you like.

SPICES: cayenne, chipotle powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc. For richer flavor, toast the spices in a hot dry pan until they release their aroma.
 
 
Does this sound strange to you?

We had such a good time, we’re going to do it again, with other flavors of ice cream.
  

[1] and [2] Have some fun with your pie crusts (photo courtesy Dulce Delight).

[3] You can make the crust in different colors (photo courtesy Balducci’s).

[4] Vermont Creamery’s European-Style Butter has 86% butterfat, compared to 80% with most supermarket brands (photo courtesy Good Eggs).

The colored crust, by Raiza Costa of the Dulce Delight online video series, is a “first” for us, excepting green bagels and donuts for St. Patrick’s Day and some very festive rainbow churros for Pride Week.

RECIPE: RAIZA COSTA’S PURPLE PIE CRUST

The crust becomes purple by adding food color to the water used to make the dough; the dough is made in a food processor. A food processor breaks up the cold butter more quickly and evenly. Raiza also recommends the highest-fat butter possible, and uses the 86% fat cultured butter from Vermont Creamery.

Raiza uses her own homemade food color; here’s her article on how to make different food colors. But you can use a commercial food color like McCormick’s, in a proportion of 10 drops red to 5 drops blue; or a purple paste/gel.

To thicken a fruit filling, Raiza prefers potato starch over flour or cornstarch.

Here’s her video.
 
Ingredients For A Nine-Inch Pie

For The Crust

 
For The Filling

 
________________
*Look for European Style butter, such as the 86% cultured butter from Vermont Creamery. Commercial butter in the U.S. is 80%. More fat means creamier mouthfeel and moister crust.
________________
Preparation

1. MIX the flour, sugar and salt and add to a food processor.

2. ADD the butter and pulse one second at a time until you see crumbs the size of the pea; stop processing.

3. ADD the food coloring and spread the color through the dough, but do not overwork (overworked dough gets tough and is less flaky). Divide the dough into 2 balls, flatten and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. While the dough chills…

4. MAKE the filling. Combine the blueberries, sugar and spices in a large bowl with the lemon juice and zest; blend and then stir in the potato starch.

5. PREPARE the lattice top on a parchment sheet. Spank the dough, then roll out to a 10″ round for a 9″ pie pan. Cut into even stripes with a ruler. LIFT every other stripe, then place the alternative stripes horizontally, threading them in and out (see the video). You can do this ahead of time and freeze the lattice until you need it. It keeps its shape when place it on top of the pie and peel off the parchment.

6. ROLL the bottom crust over a rolling pin and roll it out over the pie plate; try not to use too much flour. Carefully pat down the bottom and sides. Add the filling and cover with pats of butter.

7. LAY the lattice over the filling and butter pats, and roll the edges of the bottom crust to crimp together with the top crust. Refrigerate.

8. PREHEAT the oven to 500°F. Place the pie on the bottom rack and lower the heat to 425°F. Once the crust gets golden brown which is hard to see on a purple crust), lower the heat to 327°F and bake approximately 35 minutes until the filling bubbles.