Lavender-Poached Peaches and Blackberries (without the Blackberries)

Does anyone else have this problem? You have this fantastic new recipe you want to try so you get the ingredients from the store only to get home and realize you missed an important one? *crickets chirping* Just me then! Well, I wanted to try this recipe, but when I got home I realized I forgot the blackberries. Grrrr! Fine, I'll make it without blackberries. Then I realized I also forgot the orange juice (must have been one of THOSE days), so I put the peaches in the fridge hoping they'd hang on for a week until I got back to the store. I managed to remember the OJ but I could not find blackberries in my local grocery store. What?! So I had to make this without the blackberries anyway. 


This recipe comes from the magazine Eating Well. If you haven't heard of it, I highly suggest you check it out. My mother-in-law gave me a subscription for my birthday, and this recipe was in my first issue (August 2011). According to the Eating Well website, they prefer that I do not post the entire recipe (sorry about that) you can find the original here the pictures on this blog are my own. They are nice enough to number their steps, so I'm including my own notes to coordinate to those numbers.

Ingredients:
2 cups water
1/2 cup orange juice
6 Tablespoons clover honey
4 4-inch-long sprigs fresh lavender (or 1 teaspoon dried culinary grade lavender, I got my dried lavender here, if anyone needs any I have PLENTY leftover!)
1 3-inch-long piece vanilla bean, split lengthwise
4 just-ripe medium peaches
1 cup fresh blackberries (obviously, as you will see, I didn't use blackberries, edit them out if you want to make this recipe the way I did)

Step 1 - Says to boil the peaches in the liquid "until the skins start to loosen, 1 to 2 minutes." I didn't cook mine quite long enough, the skins did not come off easily, I would go with 2 minutes.

Step 2 - No extra notes needed, just follow their directions.


Step 3 - "Return the peaches to the pan and poach until they are not quite tender when pierced with a fork, 3 to 7 minutes" Isn't that a helpful time span? I went with 7 and I'm not sure it was quite long enough but I don't think I had the heat high enough either.

Step 4 - I skipped this step.


Step 5 - Definitely pay attention here, the honey really wanted to settle to the bottom and burn. Also, I refrigerated the peaches and the liquid in the same bowl. I'm not sure if that's what they meant for you to do or not, but it works.


This is soooo yummy! It's also great straight out of the fridge and I'm sure it would be fabulous warm as well. It tastes very much like the insides of peach pie. Did you notice there's no ACTUAL sugar? The sweetness comes from the honey and the peaches. Healthy yummy food! Win!