fruit crisp – Eat, Play, Love

Fall in rural Michigan.

It’s state night again and believe it or not, we’re done featuring all of our deliciousness from Maine. While we’re sad to see it go, we’re excited to press on with some new stateside adventures. In this post we will however be revisiting another state – Michigan. Only this time we’re not cooking with cherries, rather we’re going with some juicy Michigan blueberries (not to be confused with Maine blueberries😉 ) and peaches.

My mom and dad recently enjoyed a weekend getaway to the Traverse City area of Michigan, and when they came back my dad made a delicious blueberry and peach cobbler. My dad doesn’t bake often, but when he does you know it’s going to be something good (and usually something terribly caloric). Peach cobblers, banana breads and my birthday cake (which I’m looking forward to next week!) are some of his specialties.

Dad found this particular recipe in a magazine while they were away. It’s not a surprise that it caught his eye. And since we enjoyed it so much, we brought the idea home and put our own twist on it. We first made a visit to our farmer’s market to grab up some Michigan peaches and blueberries, the we got to work making our Blueberry-Peach Crisp. Continue reading →

If you’re a regular reader, you knew this was coming. We can’t wrap-up Michigan cuisine without a dessert, and this one again puts cherries center stage.

The recipe is a simple fruit crisp that my friend Beth sent me years ago. It is easily adapted for a variety of fruits. In fact, until today we had only ever made it with raspberries, blackberries and strawberries. So if it sounds like something you’ll enjoy – feel free to be inventive. As for us, we’re still sampling the tastes of Michigan, so we chose cherries, obviously, and apricots because we had some needing a home.

Quick side note here: We used up our cherries the other day, so I need to run out for a fresh batch. And I swear this has happened nearly every time I need a specific ingredient for a recipe we’re working on, the first store I went to (the one I can usually count on for everything) didn’t have any in stock. They did, however, have the two items that I couldn’t find the last time. Ugh. So it was a multiple store run again. At least this time it was only 2 stores…a few other times this same scenario has resulted in 3 or 4 stores. Am I the only one this happens to – or is this a common phenomenon? Continue reading →