Cooking with Grandma

Cooking with my Grandmother is always a fabulous treat, she is simply amazing. She enters a kitchen with a presence of knowledge and an attitude of discovering new and tasty worlds. On this particular occasion we were delving into the world of peach Cobbler from SCRATCH! And I really do mean from scratch. This 9 hour endeavor took us back to another place in time, a place where women did spend the whole day in their kitchens preparing from meal times. A place where men slaved away to provide the means for their wife to prepare such exquisite meals ... {sigh} such a different place. But back to my Peach Cobbler!
It all started with 4 dozen peaches, 4 women, and 4 children at play. 2 women were pealing and pitting peaches wile two other women were attempting to make the "Perfect Butter Crust".
Confession: I always bought ready made dough. I do not have a pastry cutter. I knew NOTHING about "cutting cold butter into flour". I had not a clue how involved a little crust could be, but I also had not a clue how much more amazing it would be at the end. I vow to not serve any more store bought dough unless it is a short notice emergency!
There was rolling, flouring, rolling chilling, rolling, and more flouring, shaping, rolling, and yes more flouring! I fully understand why women 50 year ago did not need gym memberships ... cooking used to be quite the workout!
Once all the dough was prepared we put the first batch at the bottom of our cobbler dish and used the second batch to make our basket weave top. Back to the refrigerator it went to keep the butter solid and chilled since that is what makes a crust flaky!
Now back to our beloved peaches, all of our ingredient's have been added, grandma has served up everyone's taste tests before we proceed, the unanimous vote was YUM! So time to pour our 4 dozen peach mixture onto our perfect butter crust.
Last but not least was our basket weave top, some cinnamon, some butter, and some sugar. I think my Grandma thought I was a crazy woman with the butter and sugar, she kept reminding me "just a pinch" or "just a splash" but I am more of an all or nothing girl, I doused that cobbler in butter and sugar and loved every second of it!
Crust The cobbler turned out amazing and served up fabulously with some homemade vanilla ice-cream. Though very time consuming, I enjoyed this experience very much, but even more ... I enjoyed eating it!

I will give you the normal size recipe since I had to times it by 6 to make a cobbler big enough for a large party.

Combine 2 1/2 pounds of pealed and cut peaches with 3/4 cup light brown sugar, the juice of 1 fresh lemon, 2 tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Pour into pie shell, dot with 4 tablespoons butter.

Perfect All Butter Crust: 3 1/2 cups flour, 1/4 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon salt. Use pastry cutter or 2 knives to cut in 1 diced stick cold butter, once combined, cut in 2 more sticks cold butter. 1 tablespoon cider vinegar, 1/3 cup ice water. Gently work dough into a lump with butter peaces still showing, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour before rolling out.

Happy cooking! Next post will be about my boys I promise =)