For the uninitiated, this summer was dubbed my “summer of funemployment”. As you may recall I started at Kellogg for my MBA this fall but officially stopped working on June 14th to be able to enjoy my summer. It occurred to me that this is probably the first summer that I hadn’t worked in some capacity since maybe middle school. I used to volunteer at summer camps, babysit, and of course work retail (Gap Kids #9155… among others).
Truth be told, summers off are wasted on the young. I’m sure my days off as a teen were spent at the mall, at the movies or maybe seeing a certain musical one too many times. Actually, quite certainly seeing one musical far too many times.
But now I’m 30 and pretty awesome with fun hobbies and interests. This means that there really wasn’t a dull moment in this summer of funemployment. It was filled with travel (Chicago, North Carolina, NYC, Chicago), cottage hangs, Toronto eating and a day-trip to Niagara.
Niagara is one of my favourite day-trips from Toronto. It’s under 2 hrs away and you can go wine tasting, visit farms, eat at lovely restaurants, see a play if the season is right, go to the casino (blech) and of course visit the falls. This time around we planned a lovely girls excursion that included the following:
– Peach picking
– Lunch at Ravine vineyard (+ tasting)
– Wine tasting at Southbrook
– Ice cream at Avondale Dairy Bar
– Wine tasting and honey purchasing at Rosewood Estates
We had a lovely day that may or may not have included a photo shoot amongst the peaches…
Armed with about 12 lbs of peaches I had to figure out a gameplan… fast! The peaches this year were AMAZING. Probably the sweetest, peachiest peaches I have ever had. So needless to say, a number of peaches were eaten out of hand. Another chunk were preserved in a simple light syrup and others still were turned into a peach jam with pinot noir and cinnamon. I couldn’t have a ton of peaches and not bake something. A while back I had made this fabulous peach pie with caramel sauce. While delicious, I wanted to step things up a notch so I decided to make Peach Frangipane Tartlets using Tartine’s recipe.
Peaches + almond-based filling + sweet pastry + baked in tartlet pans from France = amazing.
These tarts were quite possibly one of the best things to come out of my kitchen ever. And that’s a bold statement. What’s even more awesome is that you don’t have to use peaches, you can easily use plums, berries, apples, plums etc.
The recipe has multiple parts so rather than post below I’ll direct you to this link from the folks at Tartine: check out the recipe here.
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