Blue Tooth and Blueberry Peach Cobbler
"When you have pain, it's helpful to be curious about it."
My midwife told me this, years ago when Kiddo was only a mystery growing in my belly. She went on to say, if you are willing to be curious about your pain, and accept it instead of fighting it, it can be instructive. I've never forgotten this advice. During labor, I paid keen attention to the sensations my body was experiencing and paced my breathing, not to avoid pain but to lean into it a little and let it pace the birth.
So, fast forward more than fourteen years, and I'm learning about an entirely new feeling: toothache. Yesterday I woke up with a sore feeling in my mouth, inside my lower jaw. A trip to the dentist up the street and the guess, as of this moment, is likely an abcessed tooth, so today I go for my first ever root canal. I was lucky to be able to be seen so quickly, for sure, as the pain has doubled from yesterday. It came on while I was out picking blueberries this morning, and I was surprised at how much of my face and mouth the pain radiated out to. Thank goodness the ibuprofen eventually quelled the inflammation so things just feel achy and slightly numb.
The dentist was puzzled because the molar this pain corresponds to is not visibly damaged, so I'm curious what they will discover at the endodontists, when they use that fancy CT machine that whirls around ones head. I've watched all of the videos on their web page, read up on the possible procedures, and feel prepared. I have cans of chicken noodle soup ready, some fried tofu from the Thai take-out last night, and some soft foods in mind. So, now it's time to do something fun...
like making a lightly-sweet and simple cobbler with Kiddo. Last week, I found this recipe on Eating Well, but didn't want to follow it directly as I only had one peach. I also didn't want a huge pan of cobbler, just something big enough to use up the many bowls of blueberries from the dwarf bushes out back, prodigious givers of the good stuff. So, I halved the recipe and make it in an 8"x8" brownie pan. (Volume for the original recipe would be approx. 117 square inches, whereas the smaller pan is a bit more than half.) I also omitted the vegetable oil in favor of the melted butter, simply because it tastes better. I want to share this with you because this cobbler is the perfect amount of sweet-- at just 1/4 c sugar for the entire thing, my husband declared that it reminded him of the baked goods he enjoyed during his Army stint as a counterintelligence officer in Germany. (For those unfamiliar, these are Joe's glory days, with wild stories of traveling Europe, skiing in the Alps, visiting Kenya and Egypt and generally living it up.)
Without further nostalgia or ado... here's a tasty treat you can feed the kids for breakfast or lunch, paired with a protein, and zero guilt!
3 Tablespoon melted unsalted* butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2. Melt butter in an 8"x8" pan in oven.
3. While butter is melting, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the milk, sugar and vanilla and stir to combine.
4. Now add melted butter to batter, stir in. Pour batter into hot baking pan, spoon fruit over the batter. I put on the peaches first and then top liberally with blueberries.
5. Bake until the batter has browned a bit and the fruit is set. This runs about 45 minutes. Use a toothpick to test when the batter is done; when it come out clean, you're likely good. Let it rest for 15 minutes and you can turn it out onto a wire rack, or let it cool. We ate ours out of the pan as that was easier for us to store. Can be served solo or with the usual accomplices in deliciousness: ice cream, whipped cream or if you have some lovely Dorset cream, why not pour a bit on?
Our family ate this over two days; refrigerate it if you want it to last longer.
*If you only have salted butter, then omit the salt in the recipe as it will be overkill.
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