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.
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| One box of peaches. This is about 1/2 bushel box. |
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| 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.) |
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| A bowl of water and ice on the right. |
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| Scald the peaches for 4-5 minutes so the skin is easy to remove. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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.
