Spirited Peaches

Connie's brother, Tom, just moved from Boston to Chicago.  Well, he's working and living in Chicago.  Home is still Boston.  And, he's got a ski house in Vermont.  He's been back to Boston and Vermont twice in the couple of months he's been living in Chicago.  Can't say that I blame him since he's renting a room in Chicago.  I'd be escaping too if my space was a room!!  When Connie invited Tom to join us at my family's Thanksgiving, I wasn't surprised that he said he'd love to stay for the whole weekend.   Here are Connie and Tom on Thanksgiving.  Evidently, filling one's plate is very serious business:

It was a lot of fun to have Tom around.  And, for me, it was great to finally get to know Connie's younger brother.  As guests go, he was pretty easy to please.  He wanted his meat cooked more done than we like and he doesn't like liver.  And, he wanted some dessert.  We're not sweet eaters for the most part.  I remember when my sister-in-law's family came over for dinner and I didn't serve rolls.  As far as they're concerned, a meal isn't complete without rolls.  I could care less about having rolls.  Rolls are simply a delivery method for butter.  Well, desserts around here are equally rare.  I'll make a pie and we'll each eat a piece.  Connie'll eat another in the middle of the night.  Then, a week later, I'll scrape the rest of it into the trash.  Even Connie's favorite cheddar pear pie typically meets the same fate. 

Since I worked the whole day after Thanksgiving and wound up passing on the Tour Indy adventure on Saturday so I could work, I wasn't particularly excited about coming home and fixing dinner AND baking something for dessert.  But, I wanted to be a nice hostess and give Tom dessert.  Fortunately, I had a jar of spirited peaches in the pantry...

Spirited Peaches

Ingredients:
1 jar spirited peaches or other fruit
1 pie crust
raw sugar
heavy cream, whipped or not

Directions:

Roll out the pie crust.  Take an individual serving size ramekin and turn it upside down and mark three rounds on the pie crust.  Cut the rounds out.  You can get a little fancy and use one of those scallopy cutters like I did.  Or, it works just as well if you use a knife and have non-scallopy edges.  Divide the fruit into the three ramekins.  This works just as well for two - you just get a little more fruit.  And, really, about any kind of prepared fruit will work here.  I'm not a fan of the canned pie filling but I'm sure it'd do in a pinch.  Top each ramekin with a round of pie crust.  Kind of push it in so it sits right on top of the fruit.  Sprinkle a little raw sugar on top.  If you don't have raw sugar, regular white sugar or a little brown sugar will work. 

Bake the ramekins at 350 for about half an hour.  You want the crust to be nice and brown and the fruit to be bubbly.  You can serve them as is or pour a little cream over the top or whip cream and dollop it on top.  If you choose to whip the cream you can add in some spices that'll go with the fruit.  Maybe a little freshly grated nutmeg or cinnamon.  In our case, we opted for the cream plain.  Something about another bowl and beaters and getting the mixer out and adding to the mell of a hess in the kitchen. 

These were great little desserts.  I'm going to buy another jar of fruit to have on hand!