August 2009: Millions of Peaches... Peaches for Me

The year was 1996 and I was a Senior in high school. I remember listening to this song at my friend Jarom's house in Temecula, jumping on the trampoline. It all seems so carefree now. "Millions of peaches, peaches for me. Millons of peaches, peaches for free." Such deep lyrics and very catchy. I have been living this song this week. Having these plums and peaches in the house has thrust me into a world I have never known. This week alone I've been baking, slicing, freezing, jamming, puree-ing, yes all technical terms. I don't know how people do this all the time.

So what to do with my peaches...

Thank you all for your encouragement. I initially had all sorts of things I wanted to try. The first was to can some peaches. Some of my friends gave me a basic list of things to buy and told me to try Wal-Mart. I went there thinking, "this should be easy, it will just take me a second and I'll be on my way". Naive. That's pretty much sums me up, and I'm ok with that. I stood there in front of the "canning" section at Wal-Mart just staring. I tried to call a friend desperately on the phone with no luck. The 2 types of jars I was supposed to get were out of stock and I didn't know which other types were just as good. There was all brands and kinds of the "pectin" (thats what its called, right?) and I didn't know how many boxes to buy. Well I bought a random sampling and left feeling dumb already. Lets just say that canning didn't happen and I have a counter full of things to return and I just LOVE returning things at Wal-Mart.

Lets go with my successes instead:-)

Success #1

I wanted to make peach cobbler and I found a recipe by Paula Dean (I said her name in my mind with a southern accent because you can't read or say her name any other way). I knew it had to be good and it was!!!

Disclaimer: Taking photos at night, is not my strength. Sorry these don't look as good as the Plumble but I promise its yummy!

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Peach Cobbler

I promise its yummier than it looks

Ingredients
4 cups peeled, sliced peaches

[I learned a great way to take the skin off the peaches lickity-split from this article "How to Freeze Fruit" on Tipnut.com. "Bring water to a boil then submerge the fruit in the water for about 45 seconds. Remove fruit and plunge into a sink full of ice cold water. Skins will come right off! Its true.]

A beautiful boiled peach

Happy peaches with the skins removed

2 cups sugar, divided
1/2 cup water
8 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 1/2 cups milk
Ground cinnamon, optional

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine the peaches, 1 cup sugar, and water in a saucepan and mix well. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Put the butter in a 3-quart baking dish and place in oven to melt.

Mix remaining 1 cup sugar, flour, and milk slowly to prevent clumping. Pour mixture over melted butter. Do not stir. Spoon fruit on top, gently pouring in syrup. Sprinkle top with ground cinnamon, if using.

Pre-baked, Doesn't this look appetizing

Batter will rise to top during baking. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes.

To serve, scoop onto a plate and serve with your choice of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

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Okay so I guess I was getting a little cocky because I thought, hey I doubled the last recipe and it turned out, so I'll just double this one too. Probably not the best idea. It said to use a 3 qt dish and Mike's Le Creuset dutch oven is 5 1/2 qts so I figured I'd be fine. I ended up having to keep the oven light on and watch the thing bake because the "Batter will rise to the top during baking" part of the directions was definitely true. It kept rising and rising and rising. I was sweating and it wasn't just because I was leaning next to a hot oven. Thankfully it just missed the overflowing point. It did however not quite bake completely. My family didn't seem to mind too much with ice cream oozing all over the hot cobbler, but I ended up having to put it back in the oven. Oh well, I'm still counting it as a success:-)

Once again, it tasted better than it looks, Maybe no pictures would have been better:-)

Well I'm not even close to being done with posting about all the things I did with peaches this week, but my time limit is up that I gave myself. So you'll just have to be in suspense...