Dessert

I know I've mentioned several times on Runnemede Remembered the fact that desserts were few and far between at our home in Runnemede. My mother wasn't a dessert person. And if I recall correctly, we rarely had heavy desserts after a big Italian meal at one of the relatives, either.

That said, my sister and I were talking about this website yesterday and were discussing desserts. We recalled few desserts, and these days, I'm not sure they'd classify as dessert, but this is a short list of what we remembered. This week, being Valentine's week, and the week for "sweet" things, I'll recall the "few and far between" desserts my mom gave us.

Our favorite dessert: Canned fruit cocktail -- who got the cherry?

My father's favorite dessert: Canned peach halves with two cookies, usually those dry, plain butter cookies shaped like imitation flowers. I can't recall their name, but I was never fond of the cookies. I loved the peaches.

Mom canned peaches most summers and taught me how to make peach-pit jelly. You need real peaches for this.

• Wash and peel the peaches, save the peels. Remove the meat of the peach from the stone. If you're canning perfect halves, you get a smaller yield of jelly, but if you're using the peach for something else, like a pie and you're not fussy how the peach pieces look in the pie, you can make a nice jelly.
• In a pan cover the pits and peels with water. Add an equal part of sugar. Simmer until the mixture thickens. Remove the pits and push the remaining mixture through a grinder sieve. You now have a nice jelly that will thicken over age. I personally don't use the skins when I make the jelly, just the pits, that way I don't have to run it through a sieve. It's really good.

We talked about mom and the fact that on Saturday night, along with scrubbing the kitchen floor, she also made a coffee cake for Sunday morning. I personally didn't like it, but my sister and father did. That cake was taken from the Bisquick box and basically was the Bisquick "cake" with a cinnamon/sugar crumbled topping. Sorry, not my cup of tea. And she would also make jello with some kind of canned fruit in it for dessert on Sunday. Sunday was the day for left overs and I suppose that was her way of dressing them up for us. We did love jello growing up.

Jello: Alan is very fond of all things jello. Personally, I don't like to make the stuff, because I find it difficult to get it from the counter to the refrigerator without slopping some of the stuff over the edge of the container. I know, I should use a larger container, and I've even tried that.

Guess I'm just not steady enough on my feet to do that little trick successfully.

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