Peaches, Ninja Turtles and Chaos-Oh My!

     While I don't always love living in Illinois, I do love our summer fruits and vegetables. Saturday we made a trip to Alma, IL to the Mazanek family orchard for peaches. We had our grandsons for the weekend and they really love seeing how things grow. The apples were already heavy on the trees and we were told that it was going to be a great fall apple crop this year.

     We also stopped at a small market in St. Peter, IL. It is a community of Old Order Mennonites. The store had handcrafted wooden items including the playhouse in the above picture from my phone. The boys loved it and said, "grandpa, why don't you get a job so you can buy this for your backyard"! I guess maybe we need to take them to where my husband works so they will see that he does have a job! It was an interesting store full of bulk items, cheeses and on Saturdays they make homemade pretzels and serve lunch. There were several people waiting for pretzels, so of course we ordered some. They were the best I've ever tasted, yeasty and pale. They looked nothing like those sold at ballgames. Glazed with butter and melt in your mouth perfect. I would definitely make the trip to St. Peter just for pretzels. The boys loved seeing the horse and buggies and the farm animals.

     The other thing they really loved this visit, was the tub we pulled out of the basement storage room. Their dad is 29 and he was obsessed with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when he was a kid. He had every piece you can imagine and we saved them all. Well, they are back in style and the boys love them. So, we brought up the tub and didn't tell them what was inside. I only wish I could capture the sounds they made when that lid came off. They had the best time with daddy's old toys! This is where the chaos came in...my poor living room! Look, even the lampshade isn't straight!

     You can't have fresh peaches and not make something yummy, so after the boys left I decided it was time to make my husband a treat. I didn't have a recipe, so I did some searching and combined a few recipes to come up with my version of a peach crumb pie. It turned out perfectly. I will make this again. 

Ingredients:

1 unbaked pie crust (I buy Pillsbury in the dairy case-or you can make your own)

Approx. 9 fresh peaches, peeled and sliced

2 heaping Tablespoons of brown sugar

2 rounded Tablespoons of flour

1/3 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts or no nuts)

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup quick oats

1/3 cup flour

6-8 T. of butter (I used unsalted because that was what I had-salted would be fine)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Put piecrust into pie pan (I like to use a deep dish pan)

Add 2 T. flour and 2 T. brown sugar to peaches and mix well.

Put peach mixture into prepared crust.

Mix 1/3 cups of flour, brown sugar, nuts, oats and butter with

your fingers until a crumbly mixture forms. Sprinkly over top of peaches.

Place pie on cookie sheet to catch any bubbling over.

Bake 1 hour until nicely browned.

Serve with whipped cream of vanilla ice cream.

So good!

I am joining Yvonne @ Stone Gable for

On the Menu Monday.

Please stop to visit her today!