A Pair of Peach Pizzas

Fresh peaches paired with brie and basil, or pepperoni and fresh mozzarella, for a savory summer pizza.

Luscious, ripe summer fruit . . . blah blah blah . . . nature's candy . . . blah blah blah . . . summer on a slice . . . yada, yada.

Look, I could attempt to wax eloquent about peaches, again, but I won't.  The point I'd like to make here is that your local fruit, in season wherever you live, tastes amazing.

Go eat some.

If you happen to live in a region where peaches grow, and you've already had at least a few fuzzy-lipped, chin-dribbled bites of juicy fresh local peaches this summer, consider this pizza.

Normally at this point I'd insert a rant about store-bought peaches, but not today, not this time.  The local grocery store I walk down to every 36 hours to buy a gallon of milk?  We had a tour of their produce section the other day, and as part of the tour my daughter got a local peach, a local pepper, a local early apple, a packet of local herbs, and an ear of local sweet corn.  A store that makes a point to source local (to them, that's within a 2 hr drive, with family-owned farms they've been doing business for generations) is a store worth patronizing in my book. Getting a 2 mile walk for me and the dog, freshly roasted Hatch chiles, and keeping the car in the driveway when we're out of milk are all excellent reasons too.  The peaches used in these pizza were not from that tour, though.

Indian Spiced Eggplant Yogurt Dip

Roasted CSA farm share eggplant seasoned with Indian spices and tempered with yogurt for a spicy, tangy kid-friendly appetizer.

Eggplant in the CSA farm share, as I have admitted recently, is something that requires thought on my part.  It's not like carrots or broccoli, familiar enough to eat any old way.  It's not like a tomato that can be delicious on a sandwich or put up when we get too many all at once.  It's not like beets, that I hog all to myself enjoy in a myriad of ways (check the Visual Recipe Index for recipe ideas by vegetable).

Eggplant is in a (very small) class of vegetables that the kids will eat, and happily, one particular way.  This summer I'm trying to change that.  When I made my Baked Eggplant Chips for the same-named Pizza the kids were not big fans.  I tried an Indian-spiced eggplant chip and the texture put my daughter off, but I was on to something--keep the flavor, use the food processor.

Slow Cooker Squash and Beef Masala

Indian spices, patty pan squash and ground beef comingle in this slow cooker supper.  A tasty way to feed the family from the farm share on a busy afternoon.

With school starting I feel like I'm supposed to say our days will get busier, but more than the busier Fall days, I am looking forward to the structure of the coming weeks.  Without any structure to each week (my activities have been irregular this summer), meals and meal times have really been fluid.  We'll eat lunch at 2 pm, then not really be hungry for dinner.  Having the kids up at ___ time, out the door at ___ time, with evening activities at ___ time will give me a framework on which to hang meals.  Then my spouse will return, and we'll soon be in the swing our our family routine again.  I'm looking forward to that.

I use my slow cooker year round, but not often enough for it to get Pride of Place in the kitchen.  It lives in the basement Active Storage area.  Technically I have 3 slow cookers, so they live in this area.
[My spouse has an engineer brain, so we have an Active Storage area and a Cold Storage area--which doesn't store food, but does store less frequently accessed items like Christmas decorations.]  I primarily use my ancient 3-4 Quart Crock pot, but I love to heat spaghetti sauce in my little one (for the days when my son is in charge of boiling the noodles right before the rest of us get home) and make Kalua Pig or soup stock in my large one.

I developed this recipe from a desire to use some of the cow in the freezer and the patty pan squash from the CSA farm share in a form that my kids would enjoy over multiple meals.  They loved Rebecca of Foodie With Family's Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala when I riffed off it to make my Slow Cooker Chicken and Chick Pea Tikka Masala.  I figured I'd do something similar.  Since tikka = chicken it makes no sense to title this dish "Tikka" anything as there's no chicken in it, but since masala = a sauce, usually with tomatoes and spices and cream, I'm good with my title.  This makes a lot, and the leftovers are good in a thermos for a school or work lunch.