Success: Leek Galette and Peaches

Amid the failures of this weekend (I haven't been able to bring myself to document all of them yet, but will soon) was one shining success: 


Usually for Sunday dinner we have some really classic combination of a roast meat and several veggie side dishes. That sounds a lot like what we'll be preparing on Thursday, though, so this Sunday we went with a vegetarian option instead. Kirk made this Mushroom and Leek Galette with Gorgonzola from America's Test Kitchen, and it was fantastic (as are all recipes from America's Test Kitchen).

But I bet even they don't know that the absolutely most perfect side dish for this is a serving of peaches. 

Canned peaches. 

I was skeptical (or maybe just really tired) back in the summer when I was blanching and peeling and canning all of those peaches that they would actually be all the great to eat in the winter. I mean, how could they ever compare with the delicious fresh ones from the summer? At the time it seemed a moral imperative to save them, but eating them might be a bit more like taking a vitamin than eating a treat.

But I was wrong. These are most definitely not canned peaches from the store (or worse, from some fruit cocktail). These were like a bite of summer.

Really. Everyone around the table made the exact same face on the first bite, and made the exact same mmmm of approval. It makes a difference to can them at their best, and these were really wonderful. The whole quart jar was gone in a flash.

And the sweetness of the peach was particularly great paired with the sharp blue cheese and rich buttery goodness of the mushrooms and leeks. 

A perfect dinner, which temporarily made us forget this weekend's losses, which are worse than just the sweet potatoes I wrote about before. Lows of 12 degrees and the violent winds took out a lot of our fall crops, a full accounting of which will come.

But at least we can soothe ourselves with peaches.

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