When your eyes are bigger than your s--chedule

My intentions are good. Start a three-mile-a-day running regimen? Yes! Take on 400 square feet of Community Garden soil? Obvi. Accept responsibility for the well-being of tens of thousands of tiny insects (bees, actually)? Long live the queen! My intentions are, in fact, excellent. The problem is that they are many.

This conundrum seems to infiltrate nearly all parts of my life, including my cooking and baking habits. I spend more time than any person should perusing food blogs, food magazines, and food television, inevitably finding myself jazzed about more recipes than a family of four could consume in any given month. But when I head out to the farmer’s market or grocery store, anything seems possible. Cherry clafoutis? Buttermilk grilled chicken? Peach crumble pie? Yes! Please! Yum! And since the summer will soon be over, and peaches will no longer be in season, it’s about time I make something summer-special and write up another post for this blog. That is how I justify purchases of all kinds, and is thus how I wound up with an almost, but not quite, overripe bowl of peaches on the counter -- one that wracks me with a sense of urgency and guilt every time I enter the kitchen.

So on Sunday afternoon, when I should've been doing any number of other chores, I ended my week of produce-neglect and got down to business. It was then that I realized that my bowl full of peaches was not quite so full after all, especially after my boyfriend, surely unaware of the prospect of pie, ate one of the juicy specimens as a snack. Enter Plan B, or Plan P, as it were. Remembering a fantastic recipe, which calls for only a handful of peaches rather than multiple pounds, I rifled through my recipe file and recovered a tattered sheet bearing two glorious words: Peach Shortbread.

I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen, one of the many food blogs which I ogle on a frequent basis. This, like the rest of Smitten Kitchen’s recipes, is sophisticated without being fussy, carefully tested, and relatively simple to make. A certain nuttiness is imparted to the shortbread base by browning the butter -- a delightful flavor that I believe makes the extra step worthwhile. Plus, it’s a process I consider an exciting test of patience and attention span. The moment you look away is the moment your beautiful, golden butter will turn into a burnt and yucky puddle of muck. So focus, grasshopper. There is buttery, crumbly, delicately, sweetened shortbread in your future, and it is topped with tender slices of peach, and a generous helping of streusel.

Though the peaches had narrowly avoided a fate in the compost heap, I found that their state of ripeness left them the perfect sweetness and texture for the shortbread. Just as I intended....

Peach Shortbread
adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 cup Sugar
1 tsp Baking Powder
Nearly 3 cups Flour
½ tsp Cinnamon
¼ tsp Nutmeg (freshly grated is divine, but ground will also work)
2 sticks Unsalted Butter
1 Egg
3 Peaches

Place butter in a small saucepan and cook over medium-low heat. Butter will melt, then begin to bubble, foam, and brown. It will then turn clear and smell nutty, with some bits sticking to to bottom of the pan. Stir and scrape frequently with a wooden spoon to keep these bits from burning. Remove from heat and cool for 10 minutes. Then place pan in freezer until butter is again solid, about one half our. Meanwhile, grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan. Mix together dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Preheat oven to 375 F. Pit and slice peaches as thinly as possible. When butter is frozen, spoon it out of the pan in small chunks, mixing the chunks into the dry ingredients until coated. Add egg to mixture. At this point, I’ve found it most effective to use your fingers to smoosh remaining butter chunks into the dry mixture, and to gently incorporate the egg. Do this until the mixture is consistent, with some pea-sized lumps. Pour ¾ of the mixture into the baking pan and compress with your palms until flat and even. Tile peach slices evenly across base, then sprinkle remaining crumbs on top. Bake for approximately thirty minutes, or until top layer of crumbs is slightly golden. Cool, then slice into bars. These bars will keep for 4-5 days in a sealed container, but will get a bit mushy due to the inherent moisture in the peaches and the summer humidity. They will still be delicious, but are best enjoyed within 1-2 days, which should not pose a problem.