Food and Kitchen Stuff / Maybe Boring, Maybe Not

Garden harvest, July 21, 2014.

Close up of pickling cucumbers, to be made into sour pickles.

A rainy day dinner of corn chowder, salad with buttermilk dressing, cold beer, and baby.

Popular open faced sandwich:  sourdough toast, thin spread of mayonnaise, fresh and sliced tomatoes, big crunchy salt.

Keeping my eye on these Italian plums down the street which made me think of all the ones I froze last summer.  I found them in the way way back and made something with them quick before the new ones ripen.

Give me just one rainy day in the summer and before you know it I'm dumping flour into measuring cups, spilling milk into a batter, creaming butter and sugar. It's like a reflex. This plum crumble cake tart thing pretty much made itself though. 

Adapted from a recipe in Ripe by Nigel Slater. 

1.5 lbs        Italian plums, cut in half 

1 1/2 cups  Flour (I used white but you could probably use whole wheat)

1 cup          Almond meal (I food processed a large handful of whole almonds)

1/2 cup      Brown sugar 

1 stick        Butter, cold and cut into little cubes

1/2 tsp       Salt

1/4 cup      Pine nuts (or not.)

Put almonds in food processor, zizz (blend) until it becomes a coarse meal.  Add flour, sugar and salt. Pulse a few times to combine. Add butter and zizz until it is broken down into again, a coarse meal. Like you are making biscuits.

Line a 9x9" pan with parchment paper. Dump 2/3 of the flour mixture in and press down. Not too much tho. Not like you are compacting gravel more like you are patting down the dirt after you plant seeds in the garden. 

Arrange or scatter plums any which way. Dump rest of flour mixture on top so plums are sticking out a little. Scatter pine nuts. 

Bake in 350 degree oven for 40-50 minutes. Let cool, mostly, before slicing up and devouring. No after photo because too good.

Before: