Peaches help, please!

[Kim Shook]

I have a bushel of peaches that my in laws picked up at an orchard last week. They have been sitting in a box on my dining room table since then. I have some time today and figured they wouldn't last much longer, so I would go ahead and process them now. First I discovered that they aren't all that ripe. They taste ok, I guess, but aren't very soft or juicy. But they are starting to shrivel. Should I let them sit for a few more days? Close them up in a paper bag?

The other thing is that they are impossible to peel. I tried the blanching that has always worked for me and it hasn’t made any difference at all. My knife is sharp and still the peel is really, really hard to get off. Also, I discovered that they aren’t freestones – so how in the hell do I get the stones out of these things??? I am ready to give them to the freaking birds . Does anyone have any help for me? Thanks!

[Milagai]

I don't have any help for the stoning part,

but if there are too many to just eat,

how about making peach chutney with the remainder?

There appear to be several recipes here:

http://www.cyber-kitchen.com/ubbs/archive/...es_by_Mimi.html

Milagai

[Smithy]

What a shame! There are many threads on this board about the difficulty of finding really good, really ripe peaches. I find it difficult these days, even when I go to a fruit stand. The stand owners I've talked to have said that they just can't pick the fruit really ripe because it sits too long, gets mauled by potential customers, etc. The mauling is the reason they don't allow "pick your own" any more, too.

As for the ripening - if they're starting to shrivel, then they're as good as they'll get and it's time for you to cut your losses and figure that you'll be doing a lot of things involving peach puree with flavor boosters, or peach chunks with other flavors. These really sound like canning peaches to me, with the tough peel and the clingstone.

Wash the peaches thoroughly, scrub hard to get the fuzz off, and cut the flesh off in chunks. You can turn that flesh into puree for peach ice cream. You can also can or freeze the chunks for later processing into sauces or purees or pie fillings. It does sound like you'll need flavor boosters of one sort or another.

If you can stand the effort of splitting the peaches in half and digging out the pits, you might try grilling a few, drizzled with a balsamic vinegar, possibly sweetened slightly with sugar or brown sugar. That tastes really sensational and seems to be overkill with truly wonderful peaches, so it might be a good salvage in this situation.

Sorry I don't have any advice for how to soften these guys up. You've described everything I'd try; my next step might be roasting or stewing, just to see whether it helped. Otherwise I'd be hauling out the canning equipment and cutting away.

[Kim Shook]

Thanks so much. I have been continuing the blanching - longer than usual to help remove the fuzz. I am cutting off what I can and then I think peach preserves or chutney! I am so disgusted with them, I think that I will just rough cut them and throw them in the freezer and just deal with them later !

[pamjsa]

I had the exact same thing happen with a bunch of locally grown peaches about a week ago. So disappointing. In the end, I just blanched and chopped them up, saving what I could. I tossed some of the chunks into freezer bags for later use, made some into a puree (also frozen now, for later use), and whipped some into smoothies with strawberries, mango and frozen vanilla yogurt. I used some of the smoothy mixture to make frozen popsicles for my kids--they won't drink smoothies, but they love smoothy pops. Go figure.

[jsolomon]

You can gas them ripe with green bananas. That will help.

Aside from that, blanch, peel, and freeze. Perhaps a little lemon or lime juice or fruit fresh to retain color.

I wish I had your troubles.

[dividend]

Peaches like that just cry out to be made into a jam or a salsa.

I like a basic pectin-added jam, with either some lemon juice/zest to cut the cloying sweetness, or a go the opposite directions and add a little bit of vanilla extract at the end, just before jarring. The former is great on toast, the latter on ice cream <swoon>.

My new addiction is ginger peach habanero salsa. For each cup of peach flesh, toss with 1/8 cup sugar, then add 1-2 finely chopped roastedhabaneros, 1/4 cup white vinegar, some minced fresh ginger, and maybe a splash of lemon juice. Boil for 1 minute and jar. I need to make some more of this, as I don't think the 2 half pints I have are going to last much longer.

With the strawberry, blueberry, and cherry overabundance threads lately, and now this, maybe we ought to pool our ideas for what to do with all that summer fruit (?)

Edited July 6, 2006 by dividend (log)

[jsolomon]

With the strawberry, blueberry, and cherry overabundance threads lately, and now this, maybe we ought to pool our ideas for what to do with all that summer fruit (?)

←

Sauted, flambed, and served on a bed of ice cream.

[Kim Shook]

I ended up having to peel them like apples (and they were tiny little suckers, too) and cut them off the stone like a mango . They had very little flavor and were not at all juicy, so I sliced the chunks as well as I could, sugared them and let them sit in a colander over a bowl for an hour. I reduced the resulting juice on the stove (it only boiled over twice ). I ended up with enough for two pies. One I did as a two crust and flavored with brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. The other I flavored with cinnamon and brown sugar and topped with an oatmeal, butter and coconut crumb crust. I felt like I really needed to guild the lily (considering the lily was more like a weed ) this time! They are cooling right now and I'll report back as to taste later. We have company coming tomorrow for the weekend and the pies were supposed to be dessert/snacks for then. Thank goodness I have brownies in the freezer !

[TarteTatin]

I have a ton of local peaches that are really getting ripe.

Someone suggested a peach BBQ sauce. Anyone have a recipe for that?

Can I make it and freeze it?

Thank you for your help!

[Swisskaese]

I have a ton of local peaches that are really getting ripe.

Someone suggested a peach BBQ sauce. Anyone have a recipe for that?

Can I make it and freeze it?

Thank you for your help!

←

Here are a couple of recipes:

Peach BBQ Sauce

Peach Barbecue Sauce

This one calls for canned peaches, but maybe you could replace this with fresh.

[Kim Shook]

I make this one and love it:

Royal Jelly BBQ Sauce

By the way, the pies were...ok. Just. With good peaches, they would have been great, I think. But the peaches were all but tasteless, as I thought. Making them into pies didn't help at all.

Edited July 9, 2006 by Kim Shook (log)