My new love of almond crunch

I think I just got myself involved in something I can't get out of. I have an addiction and I can get the junk any time I want. What is this junk you ask?

So yesterday when I was making my fancy pants dinner, I was trying to figure out what to do for dessert. I don't really bake, mostly because I don't have the patience or the counter space/appliances to bake pastries. So I needed something easy. I had just bought some gorgeous peaches from the farmers market and figured since I was grilling my summer squash and yellow tomatoes I could also throw the peaches on the grill. So I sprinkled a little bit of cinnamon on those babies and put them on the grill for a few minutes.

Well, what fun would a few peaches be? Where I come from you need a little fat with your fruit. I've been on an almond kick lately. Raw almond, skinless almonds, almond milk, I've got it all in the cupboards. So I thought toasting some almonds with a bit of cinnamon, all spice, and brown sugar would make a good topping for the peaches. I baked those in the oven for a few minutes, careful not to let the nuts burn, and then ground them up in the food processor. Um, basically I had coarse almond powder so I cut in a little bit of butter to keep it all together.

Then I just threw the "crunch" on top of the peaches and tossed them in the oven under the broiler. I can't even tell you the smells that were wafting through my kitchen. I was in hurry to get to the couch to watch True Blood with the roommate, so I plopped a little bit of vanilla ice cream on top of the peaches and settled in for some Vampire Eric hotness. First bite....no not the vampers, but the baked peaches. It tasted so much like my grandma's peach cobbler but minus the carby pastry topping. The best part about the whole thing was the way the sweet almond mixture mixed in with the ice cream. I was pretty impressed with myself.

So this afternoon I get a text from my roommate, "I need peaches, almond crunch and ice cream. Every day not spent in the gym must be spent eating fatty food!" Well, I had to oblige. But we decided to forgo the fruit and just went with the almond topping over ice cream. I gotta say, the batch today was even better than yesterday. I knew I'd done something right when I heard my roommate yell "Jesus!" as he went up the stairs with his bowl of ice cream. I haven't seen him in a while. I'm afraid of what could be going on up there....