Butter and Rest: This is My Last Little Peach

I know. Enough with the peaches already. Get a new fruit, get a hobby, GET A LIFE. And I solemnly swear to get right on that… next week.

But come on — this is my last Sabbath breakfast pitch before school begins at Feodora, the last hurrah of summer before we lace up our saddle shoes and lift our chins for the fearless stride into autumn, so you must humor me and join me in one last peachy-keen breakfast. And once you make it, as grudging as the admission might be, I believe you will return here and admit I was right in pushing you into this last solemn, yet grateful nod to summer. And I promise not to do the “I-Told-You-So” dance until after you leave the room.

On to the peaches. So, this is a roasted peach dish with very few ingredients, and it is the texture that captivates me. Ahoy, bullet points:

• Use as many peaches as you want to eat (the logic is simply killing, isn’t it?); cut them all in half. Don’t go nuts and start peeling things — just lop them in half, toss the pit, and tuck them all tucked up friendly-like together in a pan. I would tell you what size pan, but then I would have to tell you how many peaches and we don’t want to go careening down that slippery slope, now do we? They should fit cozy, shoulder to shoulder. Do peaches have shoulders? Eh, you know what I mean.
• Get out your food processor or Magic Bullet (don’t believe the ads. I hate mine) or if you are really ambitious, your muscles and a knife. You want maybe 1/2 cup almonds, about the same raw or turbinado sugar, and roughly 4 Tbsp. butter (precision is obviously extremely important here… but seriously, go for thick topping. Those are the ratios). Whir them up. If you are so inclined, you could throw some rolled oats in here… we can talk later about why are you are so infernally fixated in putting something “healthy” in your Sabbath breakfast. The words will be hard.
• Divide the almond stuff between the peach halves, pressed down like a cute little sugary peach hat. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on your peaches and how many you used and all. They should get golden and bubbly and smell like… shoot. All of my similes are sounding a little too Anne of Green Gables… Good. They will smell really, really good.
• Vanilla ice cream is seriously extremely good on these, hot from the oven, with your morning coffee and some bacon. If you aren’t quite there yet (oh bringer of oatmeal to a perfectly good peach), Greek yogurt would do the job too.

You know, one of the really lovely things about this recipe is that it can be prepped entirely the night before and can infuse your Sabbath morning with a sense of leisure that possibly it has lacked. Take the opportunity — go and heap love on your people in the time you have saved. Make your kids laugh, sit with your husband and hold hands for no other reason than that God gave you to one another. Do the good work of loving and cherishing and be amazed what it does for your outlook, for the preparing of your heart for worship and rest.