Sorry for the dumb title but, I couldn’t help myself. 🙂 I can’t believe that it’s been a year since I have posted anything! I should feel really bad, but honestly sometimes we need to step back and take a break for awhile to work on other important things. Well, I hope to get back to some sense of regular posting because I still have a lot to share with you all!
So to start things out, I wanted to share what I have been working on lately and a few tips. So I guess it’s not really a recipe, but I will share anyway. 🙂 It’s fall time and one of my hands down favorite things about fall is peaches. Everything peaches! The peaches came on early at our farmer’s market and are also ending early. 🙁 Last week when I was there, they said that these were the last of them, so of course the logical thing to do is to buy a huge box as if I could hold on to them a little longer this fall. I am not a canner, so what do I do with all these beautiful fresh peaches? I freeze them! At least this way, I can still use them in oatmeal, smoothies, and baking. I just wanted to pass along a few tips about how I freeze my peaches. 🙂
First off, I apologize that I didn’t get pictures of all the steps, but I will do my best to explain them. First, bring a pretty good sized pot of water to a boil. Use enough water that you can put at least 5-6 peaches in all the way under the water. Before you put your first batch of peaches in, have a large bowl filled with ice water sitting nearby. Once the water is boiling, you will put in 5-6 peaches for about 1 to 1 1/2 minutes is all. You don’t want to actually cook the peaches, just the skin so it will come off easily. After the minute, use tongs to take them out and put them right into the ice water. Let them sit in there for at least 2-3 minutes or longer. After you take them out of there, the skins will be super easy to peel off. My daughters help me with this step and they don’t even use a knife. They just lightly pinch the skins with their fingers and peel it off. It’s really pretty quick. If they don’t come off super easy, the peach might not be ripe enough and you will have to use a knife to gently peel off the skin. You want to make sure and use peaches that would be perfect for eating fresh right then. Not too ripe, and not too firm.
Repeat that step until all your peaches are peeled. Next, line a baking sheet with some parchment paper. Use a small knife to slice the peaches in wedges. I like to make them about 3/4 to 1 inch thick on the back side of the wedge. Line them up really close together on the pan like you see in the pictures. I did 3 pans at a time because that’s how many I can fit in my freezer. (Also, that’s how many baking sheets I currently have since they seem to keep disappearing…) Place the pans in your freezer uncovered and let them freeze for 2-3 hours. Then take them out and put the peach slices in a gallon size freezer bag and put them back in your freezer. This step helps them to freeze separately, at least on the outside, first before you add them all in a bag and end up with one big frozen peach block. Squeeze as much air out of the bag as you can before you seal it up. They can be in the freezer for quite a few months.
Hopefully that gives you an idea what to do with all your fresh peaches if you don’t want to can them! Thanks!
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