Peaches!

Sheepy placed a group peach and fruit order for a whole bunch of people! It was alot of work for her. She took orders, collected money, and picked up the fruit. We picked it up at a drop off point in the next town.

Oh, how I love good friends like that!

I knew I wouldn't have much time to take care of alot of peaches, but I wanted to put some up, so I ordered one box. Not very much, but a little is better than nothing. I ordered a box of 'ripes', which means they are ready to do that day. My plan was to make fruit leather out of them. But they were nicer peaches than I expected, so I decided to freeze them instead.

I thought about bottling them, but Vet2Be has lost his taste for sweets and sugar over the last year. I knew that bottled peaches would be much too sweet and they would just spend time decorating the storage room

I have some family members who don't bottle or preserve food, so this post is for them just in case they want to try this themselves.

One box of peaches. This is about 1/2 bushel box.

My set up: a towel on the counter to catch spills, a flexible cutting mat and sharp knife, assorted cookie sheets and cooling racks to freeze the fruit on, a bowl for the skins (the skins go to the chickens and ducks.)

A bowl of water and ice on the right.

Scald the peaches for 4-5 minutes so the skin is easy to remove.

Place the peaches in the ice water to cool quickly. I don't want cooked peaches, I just want to be able to slide the skin off the flesh.

Slice the peaches and place on a cooling rack or cookie sheet sprayed with non-stick coating. Place the trays in the freezer. It only takes the peaches about an hour to freeze. I could put the peaches directly into a bag and freeze them, but then I wouldn't be able to use only part of a bag. This way the peaches are frozen individually and we can take out enough for whatever we need them for.

Place one tray full of frozen peaches in a bag. Each bag holds enough to use in a cobbler.  Or we can make  fruit smoothies and re-seal the bag. I got about 10 bags of peaches from one box.

I also have three or four bags of frozen strawberries in the freezer. I've been freezing them throughout the summer when there is a good sale on them.

I love frozen fruit! I know that our family does, too. We always eat all the frozen fruit, but we don't always eat the bottled fruit. I know the bottled fruit doesn't take any freezer space, but I like to be able to eat what we store and store what we eat.