The headline quote sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?  I made that up because I couldn’t find any good peach quotes.  And who wouldn’t love someone that brings you 12 perfect peaches?  A friend of my youngest son’s showed up the other day to play some video games and he brought us the peaches.  I think I will adopt him.

Yes!Chef! and I immediately looked up some recipes using peaches.  I found two recipes here at the Brown Eyed Baker Blog: Fifty of the best peach recipes.  I have a few more peaches left, so I will probably use one or two more of these recipes.  I strongly encourage you to check these out if you have any more peaches.

I knew Yes!Chef! would go for the grilled peach recipe, especially when I said it would go great with grilled ribeye.  So, he hauled the box of peaches up to Tahoe and made a wonderful dinner for the two of us (sorry kids.)

I like to believe that people have noticed that I haven’t posted in a while.  I have a picture in my mind that they say, “Hey, I think I’ll mosey on over to Yes!Chef!’s blog and see what’s cookin’.”  Then, when they see that nothing has been posted, they say something like, “Dangit.  I sure do miss Yes!Chef!’s posts”.  Or, “I need to get a petition together to demand that Yes!Chef! post a new recipe.”  Or something like that.

There are good and glorious reasons why I haven’t posted in a while.  Well, not really, but I do have a few lame-o excuses that I am willing to use.  Yes!Chef! and I have been busy remodeling my family home because we are planning on moving in to it and selling our own home.  There is much work to be done at both houses.  So, Yes!Chef! has not had a lot of time to experiment with cooking.  I am still spending my time in Tahoe and running down to the house to pack up stuff.  (And we have a lot!)

Also, I’ve been trying to be more neighborly with my neighbors.  I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned my friend, Ralph, and his dog, Lacy, or not.  They live down the street from us and they go fishing every day on Fallen Leaf Lake, which is one of the many lakes close to Lake Tahoe.  Towards the end of this summer the fish were biting quite well and Ralph brought several great looking and even greater tasting trout over for us to cook up.

Ralph lives in Lake Tahoe during the summer and visits us every day.  Lacy, his dog, and Obie, my dog, get on quite well and frequently we will stop at his house when we go on our walks around the neighborhood.

Ralph also has quite a relationship with the local birds.  He spends most of his afternoon on his deck, reading books and scratching his dog.  He has bird feeders all around the deck and he has also gotten the birds to eat out of his hand and out of his lap.  I was hoping to get some pictures of this event, but the birds were not very trusting of either my dog nor myself.  Maybe next year…

Another lame-o excuse is the fire that is still burning in the Yosemite area, which is about 150-200 miles from Tahoe.  However, the smoke has been blowing north and filling up the Tahoe basin with thick smoke.  A couple of days the smoke mixed with some thunderstorm clouds and it was actually quite beautiful.  Obie and I spent a few hours driving around, walking around and taking photos.

But, some days it was just plain smokey and not very pretty.  We mostly stayed in the house and kept the doors and windows closed.

So, there you have it.  My lame-o excuses.  But, I apologize with a gift…wonderful recipes using peaches. (I will post at least one more later this week.)

First, get yourself some glorious ripe peaches.

Grill up the peaches while you are grilling the steak (get a good ribeye).

Yes!Chef! put a little dab of butter on each peach half and then set them on the outside of the grill so they would get indirect heat.  He turned them over just after he turned the steak over.  He cooked them about 4-5 minutes on each side, but watch yours so that they don’t overcook.  You just basically want them heated thru.  And you end up with this:

The recipe we used called for a panini cooker, but Yes!Chef! used the grill. The other recipe called for the peaches to be brushed with butter and placed cut-side down.  Yes!Chef! put a little butter inside the cut half and started the cooking process with the uncut side down allowing the butter to melt inside the cut side.

Yes!Chef! followed the rest of the recipe pretty much as it was written.  The only change he said he would make next time (Yea! There’s going to be a next time.) is that he would like to glaze the pecans with a sugar/cayenne/salt mixture before putting them on the salad.  He felt the meal needed a bit of a kick.  The only addition was a nicely grilled steak (he said a flank steak would also be great on this salad), sliced and piled on top.

When you cut off a piece of meat, make sure to also include a little peach, a little arugula and a little blue cheese in that first bite.  It is soooo delicious.

Since we did not invent this recipe and only changed it a little, I will refer you to the wonderful blog where we found this recipe.

Grilled Peach Salad with Toasted Pecans, Blue Cheese and Honey Balsamic Syrup

The blog is called Panini Happy and is worth taking a look at if you like Paninis.  You may even find  a recipe to use on the grill if your panini pan is not available.

Here’s a just plain grilled peach recipe if you want to try something a little different:  Grilled Peaches with Honey Balsamic Glaze.  Looks pretty tasty to me.

Enjoy!

P.S.  here’s a couple of photos that didn’t make the cut for reasons that may be pretty apparent to you.  But, for those that are interested in food photography, here you have it.

This was taken while Y!C! was putting the meal together inside, under some overhead tungsten lighting.  Notice the harsh shadows and the lack of any depth.  It will work in a pinch, but I wouldn’t advise it.  I ended up taking the food outside on our front deck where we had open shade.  Here’s the photo before I cropped it:

Not exactly the most appetizing shot considering my bare feet are in the shot along with some ant hills.  But, it cropped up nicely.  (I really need a pedicure…just sayin’)