Millions of peaches, peaches for me...

Peaches come from a can, they were put there by a man, in a factory downtown....


Okay, well, peaches don't come from a can. Except when they do. Like now. Except they were put there by me, a woman, in a suburban kitchen. I assume they're delicious. I wouldn't know, because peaches make me itch. However, many people like them, including Human #1. So I'm canning some poached peaches, to be eaten later, or to be given away as holiday presents.

While Human #1 and I were in Charlottesville (Canine #1 and Human #3 stayed home), we drove up Carter Mountain, which is right by Monticello. They have fabulous fruit - they actually supply a lot of the local Whole Foods. We got half a peck of freestone peaches, and half a peck of nectarines. The latter are basically in my stomach. The half peck got a little lighter, so I added in the peaches from this week's CSA. Bad idea - the CSA peaches were clingstone, not freestone, which meant that they needed to be done separately. Oh well. Here's how you poach peaches. Get thee to one of the farmer's markets, or a local farm, or a farm stand, or the grocery store, and poach some peaches. Serve it over ice cream, or in a bowl with some cream dribbled on top, or just eat it with a spoon.

Poached peaches

Ingredients:
1/2 peck peaches
3 cups water
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup honey
2 sticks cinnamon
1 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Method:
Blanch peaches. This means take a small pot, fill 3/4 of the way with water, and boil. Grab a big mixing bowl, fill 1/4 full of ice and 1/2 full of cold water. Note both the pot and bowl are only 3/4 of the way full. Stick a peach in the boiling water for about 1.5 minutes, then pull it out with a slotted spoon, let it drip a few seconds, plunge it in the ice water. Slip off the skins.

If the peaches are freestone slice in half with a paring knife, and pull out the stone. If, on the other hand, they are clingstone, start cursing. Then ignore the whole slicing open thing and follow the steps with the pit in. And remember to get freestone peaches next time.



Take a big pot, fill with all the other listed ingredients. You can do all honey or all sugar, I just used what I had on hand. Bring to a boil. Decide whether you're a presentation kind of person. I am very much not a presentation kind of gal. Like, so totally not it's not even funny. So I just break my peaches in half and cook them. I assume you could cut them nicely. Slap the peaches into the liquid. Lower heat, let cook about 5 minutes, maybe 10 if they are big chunks.

If you have stones still in your peaches, cut the peach with a knife and fork (I swear it works), and pull out the stones. Bring to a boil for 1 minute to kill any germs introduced in this process.

Now, how to store? You can serve immediately, put them in the fridge, or can them. Basically, that just means taking hot peaches, placing them in hot sterilized jars, and processing them in a hot water bath for 5 minutes. It's easy, but I'll give better directions in another post.

These peaches are fabulous for just about anything. Be creative. And try tossing my recipe, and poach with vanilla! Or basil!