By The cooking class on Saturday had eleven students. We have grown past what I originally imagined when I started with three women on a Saturday morning in November. Eleven women in the church kitchen on a July Saturday, ranging from Imani at nineteen to Brenda at fifty-nine, and every one of them here because they want to know how to cook, which means they want to know how to care for people, which means they want to know how to love in the most direct, physical, edible way available to a human being. I understand this impulse. It is the same one I have had my whole life.
We made peach cobbler this week. July is cobbler season in Alabama—the peaches are in, local peaches, not the hard imported ones that look right and taste like nothing, but the ones from the stands on the side of the road that are soft enough to dent with a thumb and fragrant from three feet away. I made the students smell the peaches before we did anything else. I said: before you cook a fruit, understand what it is at its peak. You cook to honor what the ingredient already is, not to improve it. If the peach is right, your job is simple: don't ruin it. Add butter. Add sugar. Add a crust that is tender rather than hard. Step back. Let the peach be the peach.
Eleven women made cobbler on a Saturday in July. The church kitchen smelled like August and July and every summer I have ever had, and when the cobblers came out of the oven we ate them standing at the counter with spoons, eleven women and me, the steam rising, the peaches soft and yielding, the crust doing its one job. Brenda—who came to us six months ago saying she was tired of canned food—stood there with her spoon and her cobbler and said, "I made this." Not as a question. As a statement. As a fact about herself. "I made this." Yes. You made this. You made this and it is right and it is yours and nothing can take it away from you. That's what cooking gives you. That's what I'm here to pass on.
After eleven women stood at that counter with their spoons, I wanted to send them home with something they could make on their own—something that asked the same thing of them that we practiced together: trust what the fruit already is. This slow-cooked hot fruit salad is the recipe I point beginners to when they leave the church kitchen, because it builds the same instinct cobbler does. You don’t improve the peach; you give it warmth, a little butter, a little sugar, and you let time do the rest. Brenda’s voice is in my head every time I make it—“I made this”—because you will say the same thing when you lift that lid.
Slow-Cooked Hot Fruit Salad
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 3 hours | Total Time: 3 hours 10 minutes | Servings: 10
Ingredients
- 1 can (29 oz) sliced peaches, drained
- 1 can (20 oz) pineapple chunks, drained
- 1 can (15 oz) mandarin orange segments, drained
- 1 can (15 oz) pear halves, drained and cut into chunks
- 1 can (21 oz) cherry pie filling
- 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 1 tablespoon quick-cooking tapioca (optional, to thicken)
Instructions
- Layer the fruit. Add the drained peaches, pineapple chunks, mandarin oranges, and pear pieces to a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker. Spoon the cherry pie filling over the top and stir gently to distribute.
- Season. Sprinkle the brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg evenly over the fruit mixture. If you want a thicker consistency, stir in the quick-cooking tapioca at this stage.
- Add butter. Scatter the butter pieces across the surface—don’t stir them in. Let them melt down through the fruit as it cooks.
- Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, until the fruit is tender, fragrant, and the juices have thickened slightly. Stir once halfway through if you like.
- Taste and adjust. Before serving, taste for sweetness. A touch more brown sugar or a squeeze of lemon juice can balance the flavor depending on how sweet your fruit is.
- Serve warm. Spoon into bowls and serve as a side dish alongside ham or turkey, or as a simple dessert topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 185 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 3g | Carbs: 41g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 18mg