It’s peach season and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they hold out long enough for me to can some for winter. In the meantime, here’s the peach gelato that made me swoon, if I do say so myself.

Ever wonder what the difference is between ice cream and gelato? Sherbet and sorbet? As far as I can tell, from my extensive google research, the difference between ice cream, gelato, sherbet and sorbet is something like this:

• ice cream, French = milk, cream, eggs
• ice cream, Philadelphia/American = milk, cream, no eggs
• gelato = milk, maybe eggs, no cream
• sorbet = just fruit, no dairy or eggs
• sherbet = milk, no cream and no eggs

Still confused? Short version: if you taste the cream first, it’s ice cream. If you taste the fruit first, it’s gelato. That’s the official FoodieTots definition at any rate. Now I set out to make Philadelphia-style peach ice cream, but the bottle I had labeled cream was in fact buttermilk; instead I used my cream-top whole milk, so while it has a little cream it is mostly milk. It has the texture and strongly fruit-forward taste of gelato, so that’s what I’m calling it.

Recipe: Peach Gelato

Ingredients:

• 4-5 peaches (1 1/2 pounds), peeled
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 vanilla bean (or 1 teaspoon vanilla)
• 1 cup cream-top whole milk
• juice of 1 lemon wedge

Instructions: I use the boil/ice bath method to peel peaches. It seems like a hassle but trust me, it’s a lot easier and time saving in the long wrong then trying to scrape peels off with a paring knife.  Score the bottom of each peach with a small “x” cut, then drop them into boiling water for 20 seconds. Remove with a slotted spoon and place them into a colander set in ice water for several seconds, then set on cutting board and leave several minutes to cool. The skins will pretty much slip right off at that point.

Dice the peaches and place in a medium stock pot over medium high heat, add honey and seeds of the vanilla bean. Cook until peaches begin to fall apart, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for several minutes. Add milk and blend in small batches in a blender, or use an immersion blender in the pot. I recommend the regular blender to make sure there are no chunks — in a home freezer, the chunks of fruit get too icy and aren’t as flavorful as in commercial ice creams. Stir in the lemon juice and pour into a glass bowl or pitcher. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator (I leave it overnight) and then process according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. (I use the Kitchen Aid ice cream attachment and mix it for 10-12 minutes, until it thickens and reaches a very soft icy consistency, then freeze for 3-4 hours.) Enjoy!

Shared with Fight Back Fridays at the Food Renegade, because once you’ve had homemade ice cream — or gelato — you’ll never go back to that commerical chemical goop from the supermarket.

The new film Julie & Julia opens tonight, and if you have even a passing interest in food and cooking I highly suggest you catch it. If you haven’t seen the trailer (or book or blog), it’s a Nora Ephron film about a girl, Julie Powell, who decides to cook and blog her way through Julia Child’s masterpiece, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It’s an ideal girls-night-out film with splendid acting by Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. It’ll also give you a glimpse into the high-stress juggling act of working by day and food blogging by night, like yours truly, though Julie had only a cat watching, not a hungry child calling for attention every other minute. There’s a catch-22 for food bloggers in discussing this film, as any negative criticism is quickly dismissed as jealousy over the fact that Julie successfully blogged her way to a book and film deal; something that is surely the dream of many food bloggers around the world. I had never read Julie’s blog or book but was familiar with the tale; my main complaint with the movie is not directed at Julie’s character but just that I would have loved to see much more of Julia.

At any rate, my sure-fire pitch for a book deal is also a blatant rip-off of based on Julie’s challenge: my soon-to-be-3-year-old will cook his way through Julia’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking before his 4th birthday. Okay, maybe we’re not quite ready for that, but in honor of his impending 3rd birthday I decided it was time to teach him to crack eggs. We set out to make the ubiquitous Julia Child clafouti(s) — for some reason Julia omits the “s” — but since cherry season here has come and gone I opted to use the last of July’s blueberries, which the husband and the boy picked up at the Del Ray Farmers Market on Saturday.

Recipe: Blueberry Clafouti, adapted from Julia Child

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups milk
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 – 2 cups blueberries
1/3 cup sugar
powdered sugar

A few words of advice for baking with younger kids: measure and prep all ingredients before hand, then arrange them in the order needed next to the mixing bowl. Have them crack the eggs first and into their own bowl to make fishing out pieces of shell a little easier. Clafoutis is simple to prepare and kids can take charge of mixing all the ingredients but the fruit together in a large bowl. We whisked the eggs together first, then vanilla and almond extracts (almond is my addition), sugar, flour, salt and milk.

I wouldn’t dare criticize Julia, but I find it amusing that she speaks so condescendingly of using a blender to make mayonnaise and yet uses one to whip up her clafouti(s) batter. If your child over eagerly dumps in ingredients before the prior ingredients are fully combined, here’s an easy trick to smooth the batter: pour it through a fine mesh sieve, pressing with your spoon to dissolve the lumps.

To bake the clafoutis, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Pour a thin layer of batter into the bottom of the buttered, wide and shallow baking dish and cook it until it just begins to set, about 3-4 minutes. Sprinkle the blueberries over the batter, and the 1/3 cup reserved sugar over the berries, then top with the remaining batter. Return to oven and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until custard is puffed and a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool, sprinkle with powdered sugar and enjoy!

The boy scored a bite before bed and declared it “mmm, good.” If you want to introduce your kids to Julia without messing up the kitchen, head over to the American History Museum to see her complete kitchen, including her very own French copper pots and pans which were recently returned by Ephron after being used in the movie. (At the donation event, Julia’s niece Phila Cousins relayed Julia’s incredulous reaction to the Smithsonian’s request for her kitchen. One can only imagine what she would think of the film!)

In the film, Julia writes to her sister, “I think I’m the only American woman in Paris who has as much fun shopping for food as shopping for a dress.” I’m with her, but for a less foodcentric review check out my friend the DC Fashion Gal’s take on the film. Seen in? Love it? Let us know!

I’m sharing this post with the Mastering the Art of French Cooking round-up hosted by La Cuisine d’ Heléne (and #MTAFC on twitter); and sending it over to Fight Back Fridays at the Food Renegade, because Julia wrote MTAFC to empower “American women without cooks” to get into the kitchen, something my fellow real food advocates believe in as well.

Somehow I missed reading about the pie challenge at The Kitchn until about 9pm tonight. I’d been planning to roast my beautiful Cushaw pumpkin tonight, so why not throw together a pie? After a mad rush to roast, bake and blog by the stroke of midnight, I completed my entry form at 11:59pm on the dot … only to have my internet connection drop and return a few minutes later to the “error: the entry form is now closed” message. Nooo! Oh well, now that I have this pretty blog post prepared, hopefully you all will enjoy it even if it’s not a prize winner.

To complement my pumpkin, from our Potomac Vegetable Farms CSA in Virginia, I decided to keep it simple and use a few other quality, local ingredients, namely my South Mountain Creamery butter and Hilldale Farms organic eggs.

This summer I tried the Cooks Illustrated vodka pie crust, to rave reviews. It was perfectly light and flaky. This time, I made it with all (local, natural) butter since I generally prefer not to use shortening, and found the resulting dough a little less moist and easier to work with. It still requires chilling, though, before rolling it out, and I rolled it out between two pieces of plastic wrap to facilitate getting it off my cutting board and into the pie plate in one piece.

For the pumpkin puree, I split my pumpkin in half and roasted it cut sides down on parchment paper at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. This pumpkin is more yellow than your traditional pumpkin, but the cooked flesh was so luscious and creamy it barely needed blending. I used a hand blender just to smooth it out. I like my pumpkin pie custardy with a little creaminess, but instead of using condensed milk I used a little local yogurt instead.

Recipe: Rustic Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

• 1 9-inch pie crust (Cooks Illustrated, half the recipe)
• 2 cups fresh pumpkin puree
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 organic eggs
• 1 teaspoon organic vanilla
• 3/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 cup plain, unsweetened whole milk yogurt

Instructions: Prepare pie crust and set aside. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, stir together pumpkin puree and sugar until well blended. Add eggs and vanilla and whisk to combine. Stir in seasonings, then yogurt. Blend completely, then pour into prepared pie crust. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and cook until set, about 35-40 minutes more. Makes 8 servings.

Pour yourself a glass of fresh milk (ours was delivered this morning!), and enjoy the perfect midnight snack! Or, you know, save it for a holiday like a normal person. Either way, enjoy!

This is the first in a four-part series of FoodieTots Thanksgiving favorites – starting with dessert first, of course! Stay tuned for a few other turkey day recipes.

I had been suffering a serious case of foodblogger envy watching others whip up homemade ice cream treats this summer, so finally broke down and bought the KitchenAid ice cream attachment. I’ve gushed before about the wonderful local ice cream/custard/gelato treats we have available, but I’ve been wanting to experiment with healthier variations. Since the toddler seems to have inherited my family’s ice cream addiction — seriously, he woke up one morning recently requesting, “i skeem? i skeem?” — I wanted to try out some low sugar options. Using the sweet, ripe fruits at market right now makes that easier as they don’t require much added sweetener. For my first attempt, I decided to try a sherbet – the full fruit flavor of gelato, but with 2% milk instead of eggs. So it’s low fat too! I used honey under the theory that it requires less to match the sweetness of regular sugar, and was pleased that this turned out pleasantly sweet even with the tart blackberries. I was worried that the berries might overpower the peach flavor, but it turned out wonderfully balanced. It’s not as creamy as ice cream, but still a luscious summer treat.

Recipe: Peach Berry Sherbet

Ingredients:

• 1 c water
• 1/3 c honey
• 1 c berries (used 2/3c raspberries & 1/3 c blackberries)
• 2.5 cups peaches
• 1 c 2% milk

Instructions: Bring water and honey just to boil in small saucepan over high heat, stir to dissolve honey. Add berries, crushing with back of spoon and reduce to low simmer for 10 m. Remove from heat and strain through fine mesh sieve. Chill while preparing peaches.

Peel and dice peaches. Puree in food processor or blender until smooth, add milk and berry syrup and pulse until blended. Chill for at least 1 hour. Process in ice cream maker as instructed, freeze and enjoy! Makes about 1 qt., 4-6 servings.

Blend peaches, milk and berry syrup in food processor. Chill 1 hour. Freeze in ice cream maker.

Food Miles: This was 100% local! South Mountain Creamery milk 63mi., Toigo Orchards honey 114mi., Papa’s Orchard’s donut peaches 87mi., Harris Orchard’s supersweet peaches 24mi., Westmoreland Berry Farm black & raspberries 71mi. All but the milk (delivered) and Harris peaches were from Alexandria farmers markets — this recipe is being shared with the Farmers Market Report at the new “To Every Meal There is a Season”.

I’ve never been a huge cherry fan, but after getting reacquainted with fresh Rainier cherries I thought maybe I’d give some other varieties another try. This past weekend at the market, I picked up a quart of yellow-tinged Queen Anne cherries, slightly tart like the Rainiers. Another stand had signs saying last week for gooseberries. I’d never had gooseberries, so I snatched them up. Fortunately I read a well-timed post from The District Domestic warning about the tartness of green gooseberries before biting into one too eagerly. I decided to combine them with the cherries for yet another new-to-me experience, a cherry clafoutis. This French baked custard recipe has numerous intrepretations to choose from. I decided to start with The Garden Apartment’s fusion of Julia Child’s and Foodbeam’s recipes… I used buttermilk and more eggs, so it turned out something like this:

Recipe: Cherry-Gooseberry Clafoutis
Adapted from The Garden Apartment and others.

Ingredients:

• 2 T butter, melted
• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 t vanilla
• 1 t almond extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup flour
• 3 cups berries (1/2 ea. gooseberries and Queen Anne cherries, halved and pitted)
• 1/4 and 1/3 cup sugar
• powdered sugar

Instructions: Toss berries with 1/4 sugar and let stand (adjust to taste; I’d use less with sweeter cherries). Preheat oven to 350*. In mixing bowl, thoroughly whisk butter, buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, almond extract, sugar, salt and flour. Pour a 1/4 inch layer of the batter into buttered baking dish and bake 4 minutes or until batter begins to set. Remove from oven and spread berries over batter, then pour on rest of batter. Bake for another 50 minutes, until puffed and golden brown. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, and enjoy! (Makes 6-8 servings.)

Notes: Next time I will probably use less or omit the butter, as it turned out a little oily. Also, I would use a tart pan next time as the pan I used was much too deep. (Didn’t affect taste, but not as photogenic as it could have been!) This not-too-sweet clafoutis would be a great base for other fruits or berries too – I might try it with blackberries later this summer.

Farms/Producers: Ingredients from Dupont Circle Farmers Market, including cherries from Toigo (PA) and eggs from Smith Meadow (VA).