Peaches & Storms

On our way home from the Country House this weekend we stopped at one of the local peach stands. The freestone peaches were finally available! I love all peaches but the non-freestone sure are a lot of work.

 

There are 3 or 4 of these larger stands in the same general area. All are open roughly the same amount of time each year, usually from mid-May to mid-July. The stands are attached to the packing sheds & they sell all sorts of other things like local jellies, soaps, berries, watermelons & ICE CREAM. The one we stopped at Sunday sold SOFT SERVE fresh made peach ice cream! Boy was it good.

Once the peaches are gone they close up shop until next year. I’ve often wondered why they don’t keep it open for the rest of the summer at least as a produce stand. My guess is that they are mostly off the beaten path & are a destination for peaches but not so much traffic for the other stuff.

As you can see in the picture we bought 4 1/2 bushels. Two of them were for other peach lovers, one was for us to share with neighbors & co-workers & one was for us. We didn’t get home until it was too late to deal with them. But, with peaches this fresh, they were picked on Friday, you don’t have much time before they ripen too much to handle without making a complete mess.

So, on Monday with the weather declining, I decided to leave work around noon to go home to peel, core, slice & dehydrate my peaches. I blanched them, put in an ice bath, cut in half, pinched the peel away, cored & sliced & then put them in a citrus bath before placing on the trays.  I thought it took a long time prepare about 35 peaches.

I got about ½ of them done & the last tray put in the dehydrator around 4:00. Rain was steadily coming down. I let the dehydrator run overnight.

Cooled them & put in pint jars the next morning. A whopping 4 pints!

Since the weather was worse Tuesday, I decided to go leave early again in order to finish them up since they were ripening very fast by then. I decided to peel those by knife instead of blanching. I think it went much faster. I think that waiting on the water to boil then waiting on them to cool in the ice bath lengthened the time. At least I was home while the weather worsened. But I got another 4 pints! (Note: Put oxygen absorbers in the jars tonight & patiently awaiting them to seal themselves. If they don't I will get the food saver out & 'jar seal' them tomorrow.)

With both methods I had leftover pieces of peach that I saved. Wound up being about 4 ½ cups. I decided to make a peach crisp. The recipe I follow calls for 6-8 cups of peaches, not quite enough. I looked in the fridge & found 2 cups of blueberries that I had gotten late last week. I tossed those in flour and then added to the peach mixture. Here’s the finished product.

 

Easy as pie to make. 1 c. flour, some cinnamon & nutmeg, ½ c. sugar. 5 T. cold butter, 1 c. chopped pecans. Pulse dry ingredients in food processor to combine, add butter & process until crumbly, chill. Toss peaches (& blueberries) in ½ c. sugar & a squeeze of lemon juice. Butter 9x12 pan, put in peach mixture & then top with crumble mixture. Bake at 375 for 45 min. turn oven up to 400, bake an additional 5 min. Sure wish I had some ice cream, but it was good nonetheless.

Of course I saved the pits. Any idea if they will make baby peach trees? I guess I’ve got some research to do.

Overall, a nice relaxing 2 afternoons & I have peaches stored for future use.

Note: We got over 15” of rain here at the house. All drained well & now just seeing what the mosquitoes do in our wooded area.