God Bless The Indian Summer (Plum and Peach Cake)
Our friends own some property out in the middle of the national park, Divoka Sarka. Yesterday we went out there to see how the property is coming along (they are reconstructing all the buildings) and to have a little picnic. It was a beautiful day for it – sunny and warm, a true Indian summer type day. While we were there, we had the privilege of meeting Andrew Jones, aka Tall Skinny Kiwi. He and his family are traveling through Prague visiting some good friends of theirs (and ours) before they head to the states for a while. I was sad that his wife and kids were in the city visiting with friends and I didn’t get to meet them. I’ve heard such wonderful things about his wife and I would just love to meet her sometime.
In many ways meeting Andrew was a little strange for me. He has inadvertently and completely unknowingly had a profound influence on my faith journey as well as my blogging journey. I have to admit I was a little star struck. In many ways I felt a little intimidated and awkward meeting him and didn’t know really what to say or talk about.
In other ways, though, it was also very, well… normal to meet Andrew. He’s a very nice, very normal guy. A guy who has a dog and makes crepes for his family every Sunday. Sure, he’s a guy who has chosen a very counter-cultural life style, and a very untraditional way of doing ministry, but he’s still just a very normal, chill, easy to be around guy. He’s not some disconnected theologian, or some affected overly connected pastor. He’s just a guy who loves, laughs, and clearly enjoys hanging out with people.
Anyway, it was really great to meet him and I hope to have the chance to meet his lovely wife sometime in the future. We had a great time checking out their amazing truck (where their whole family has been living for some time now), watching our friend Mathias try to ride Andrew’s 1960’s motorcycle, seeing the new ceiling and wall that has been put up in “the restaurant”, exploring the property, and enjoying a little picnic of bread, cheese, meat, wine, tea, and of course cake.
I made a plum and peach cake that was so good I even let Thaddeus have some. It was the first time I’ve ever let him have any wheat or sugar. Here’s a picture documenting his first bit of cake:
We also did some foraging while we were there. What did we forage? Well, it’s September so APPLES, of course! There’s some big over-grown apple trees on the property so we picked a whole bag full and I’m excited to make some apple pie and other apple goodies. We also picked some elderberries (I’m going to make this syrup with them today) and some rose hips for tea.
Overall it was a really nice day and I just had to share it with you. I also had to share it with the little baby tick I got because of the outing, but that’s another story and one I don’t really care to relive…
Here’s the recipe for the Plum and Peach Cake. I really loved how this turned out. Soft and very moist, buttery and not too sweet. It was perfect. Sorry no picture – In the joy of eating this yummy cake I completely forgot to take one.
Plum and Peach Cake
4 (or 5) plums (pitted and sliced) 1 large peach (pitted and sliced) ¼ cup amaranth flour ¼ cup oats ¼ cup buckwheat ½ cup wheat flour (white or whole wheat) 3 eggs ½ cup butter (softened) ½ cup unrefined cane sugar ½ teaspoon baking soda 2 Tablespoons yogurt 1 teaspoon vanilla
Place the slices of fruit in the bottom of a shallow cake pan (I used a pie pan and it worked perfectly). Mix the rest of the ingredients together and pour over the top of the fruit. Bake at about 350 degrees F until it’s golden brown and looks done. Enjoy!
Rejoicing in the journey - Bethany Stedman