Nectarine Blueberry Cobbler

I confess, I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started this blog.  As I read more and more food blogs, I realize there is a whole, huge community of food bloggers out there that I never knew existed.  And there are some REALLY good ones too.  Great recipes, great photography, great points of view.  Man, it makes me feel like a real amateur.  My recipes are not always my own, my photography could use a lot of work, and my writing can be a bit rambling.  But I have to remember that I started this blog because I had too many ideas in my head and had so many people asking me for recipes or advice that I had to write it all down.  If only it would make me some money, it'd be the ideal situation.  I'm pretty sure that a book deal isn't coming my way any time soon, however.

Nonetheless, I've come to love my little blog.  Some days I find myself cooking all afternoon long and obsessively taking pictures of everything I make, just in case I want to blog about it.  I have quite a backlog of recipes ready to be shared.  But when I need inspiration, I find myself looking at those other wonderful blogs and wondering how they've been doing it for years. 

One of those blogs is by a pastry chef who used to work at the swanky Chez Panisse restaurant in San Francisco, David Lebovitz.  His blog, called "Living the Sweet Life in Paris" is full of some pretty fantastic stuff and I've already made several of his recipes- mint chocolate chip ice cream (my husband loved it), a great granola sweetened with applesauce, and the recipe I'm posting today, a nectarine blueberry cobbler.  Actually the recipe is from one of his books, but I only picked it up off the library shelf because I had been reading the blog.  Anyway, the recipe is simple, easily adaptable to whatever fruit you have on hand, and darn tasty.  Here's to hoping that one day my blog can be as successful as the ones I admire...

Nectarine Blueberry Cobbler
From Ready for Dessert, by David Lebovitz
Feel free to use any stone fruit in this dessert (I feel like I keep saying that, but it really is true).  In fact, I used a mix of peaches and nectarines when I made it.  Also, if you don't have blueberries, blackberries or raspberries would be just as wonderful.  Or even use a combination of berries.  You could use frozen fruit, if you like- I did.  I cut up several peaches and nectarines over a series of a couple of weeks as they were just about to go bad and froze them on a cookie tray.  When they were fully frozen, I put them in a freezer bag and back into the freezer.  These frozen ones were what I used for the cobbler.  I didn't thaw them when I made the recipe and it turned out just fine.

Filling:
8 medium nectarines
6 tbs sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups blueberries
Biscuits:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp sugar
4 tbs butter, frozen in 1 piece (you'll see why later, it's a cool technique)
2/3 cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Halve, pit and cut the nectarines into 1/2 inch slices.  In a large bowl, toss the nectarines with the sugar, lemon juice, flour, vanilla, and berries.  Transfer to a 2 quart baking dish (I used an 8x8 Pyrex dish and it fit just fine).  Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, when the fruit is heated through.  A tip- I find fruit cobblers and pies tend to bubble over, so I put a foil-lined baking sheet on the rack below the cobbler to catch any juices before they burn on the oven floor.  When the fruit is heated through remove the pan from the oven.

In the meantime, make the biscuits.  These are drop biscuits, not rolled out dough, so they are easy to make.  In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda.  Grate the frozen butter with the large holes of a box grater over the flour mixture.  This is the cool technique I was talking about earlier.  If you didn't do this, you'd have to cut the butter into chunks and cut it into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter, forks, or your fingers.  This is a lot faster and all you have to do once the butter is grated is stir it in.  Then stir in the buttermilk until an evenly moistened batter forms.

Using a large spoon, drop 6 (or so) large mounds of the batter evenly over the top of the cooked fruit.  Sprinkle a bit of sugar over the biscuits then place the baking dish back into the oven.  Bake until the biscuits are golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes.  Serve the cobbler all by itself or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  It's near impossible to resist.