A Festival of Peaches

August 13 - Birthday bar crawl with friends
August 14 - Peach BBQ Chicken thighs and a buffala mozzarella, garden tomato & peach salad
August 15 - tomato & cheddar tarts with a green salad
August 16 - I had dinner out with a friend so the Boy went for wings

This is my favorite time of year because peaches are in season.  And not just any peaches, local Niagara Peaches.  I've been going nuts making peach jam and peach salsa and will be freezing and canning half peaches this coming weekend. All for the love of this gorgeous stone fruit.  I can't help it, they are my fave and I'm so happy to be living less than 100 miles from where many of them are grown.


Because peaches are so fresh and beautiful and I'm buying them by the buckets, they are ending up in most of our meals.  Sunday turned into the veritable festival of peaches, as the title of this post implies.  It started off with some chicken thighs that I pulled from the freezer, knowing I would use some of my leftover homemade peach BBQ sauce on them.  As the chicken was on the grill, I realized I hadn't thought of a side to go along with the chicken.  Well my market fresh peaches were just staring at me and I remembered that I had some buffala mozzarella in the fridge and this easy and perfectly summery salad just came together with the addition of some mache and assorted tomatoes from our garden.

Mozzarella, Tomato & Peach Salad
serves 2

1 medium peach - halved, pitted & sliced
2-3 assorted garden tomatoes - sliced - I used a pink lady and a green zebra
1 ball buffala mozzarella - sliced
a couple handfuls of mache
sea salt & black pepper
good extra virgin olive oil & balsamic vinegar

1.  Place a handfull of mache in the center of two salad plates.  
2.  Alternating with a slice of mozzarella, tomato and peach, create a ring around the mache.
3.  Drizzle with oil and vinegar & sprinkle with sea salt.

BBQ Chicken Thighs
serves 2

3 chicken thighs
3/4 cup Peach BBQ Sauce or your favorite sauce
sea salt & black pepper

1. Heat all burners the grill over medium heat. Place the chicken in a shallow dish and top with a couple Tbsps of sauce.  Let sit while the grill heats.
2.  Turn off the center burner of the grill and place the chicken thighs, skin & sauce side up over the burner you've turned off.  Cook for 10 minutes.
3.  Turn the chicken thighs skin side down and brush with sauce.  Cook for another 7-10 minutes.
4.  Turn the chicken thighs one more time, brush with sauce and cook until the internal temp is 170F, about 5-10 more minutes, depending on how hot your grill runs.
5.  Remove from the grill and let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

Neither of these are really hard or crazy recipes, almost more methods and yet this dinner was soo good I couldn't help but share it.  Plus, it was a super simple supper, that I half wish I saved for a work night.  But I'm starting to get back in my groove with week night meals.  I pulled out one so far this week and have something working in slow cooker that will make for at least two dinner this week.  I managed two last week, so three this week will be an improvement.  What do you do when you're pressed with dinner on a busy night.  Is planning ahead key?  Or making use of leftovers?  I'd love to hear some tips and trick for what works for you.