I have mentioned in the past–more than once–that I am not a cook. It’s not that I can’t cook, I don’t like planning to cook, preparing to cook, cooking, and cleaning up after cooking. Except on special occasions like when I have help, inspiration, or a really good reason to darken the kitchen doors. Let me just say that I haven’t killed anybody or anything with my cooking–yet.
I should also mention that–despite not possessing the will to cook wholesome food for my family on a daily basis–I apparently inherited the family trait of collecting recipes and improvising, which I have passed on to the Myrtles. Myrtle the Eldest is quite amazing in the kitchen and Myrtle the Youngest is my partner in crime when I want to test out something wild and crazy.
The latter was the case a couple of weeks ago, but let me first give a little background. I live in Texas which has many “state foods”: BBQ, chili, Tex-Mex, corny dogs, to name a few. Cobblers might be considered a “state dessert” and are a staple at many pot-lucks. That said, I had never ever made a cobbler–homemade or otherwise. So June, 2020 rolled around along with my father-in-law’s birthday and I decided I would attempt to make a peach cobbler for him.
Now when I do cook, especially for a special occasion, I make an effort to do it right. I follow a recipe (not always–rarely–with precision), and, when possible, I use fresh ingredients. This peach cobbler had to have fresh peaches (it took freakin’ forever to peel and cut up six or seven peaches only to find one of them was bad). It smelled good, it tasted good, and everyone in the vicinity wanted a repeat. Which I proceeded to do a few weeks later for mi espouso’s birthday.
Moving on to a couple of weeks ago, I decided that peach cobbler with brandied peaches sounded kinda good. Have I ever had brandied peach cobbler? No. Have I ever sampled brandied peaches? No. Have I ever had brandy? No. Am I going to modify the current successful recipe to meet my current yen? Why yes, yes I am.
Fortunately, Myrtle the Younger is on board with this idea, so off we go to the liquor store (because one must have brandy to make brandied peaches, don’t you know–did I mention that I’ve never had brandy before?). Obtaining peaches and brandy, we proceeded to skin the poor little darlings and I decide that a cup of brandy in the pot oughta do the trick. But first, as all good chefs should do, we must taste the brandy.
I do not like brandy.
But I continue with the plan and allow the peaches to soak up as much alcohol as they wished while the bowl sat in my fridge. Every few days, Myrtle the Younger would ask when we were going to do the cobbler. I kept putting it off because–you know–I don’t want to cook. We even bought a few more unsaturated peaches to mix with the drunk ones so we would be able to drive after sampling the cobbler (not that we needed to go anywhere, but just in case someone had to go buy another dessert or go to the ER).
Finally, she corners me and I agreed we needed to do the deed today. The first thing we did, with great trepidation, was remove the lid of the sloshed peaches in hopes that they would still be edible. They seemed happy, so we moved to the fresh peaches. The three remaining ones were REALLY RIPE by this time but were still usable.
While I’m peeling the fresh peaches, Myrtle looks up the recipe and happens upon a recipe (get this) for brandied peach cobbler. It called for 1.5 TEASPOONS of brandy over fresh peaches without letting them set. If I recall correctly, I doused my little guys in about 1 CUP and let them percolate for two weeks. OOPS!
We continued with our endeavor, deciding to follow the original recipe, and lo and behold, we made a darn good drunk peach cobbler for dessert!
Now I have to get more peaches, before they are out of season, and set them to swimming in a new bath of brandy. I also have reserved peachy brandy marinade that I need a use for. Stay tuned.
T.
