Peaches always ripen here the first few weeks in May. The original peach tree died a few years ago, but we quickly replanted another. This year the fruit is abundant and delicious even though the tree is rather small. Picking is a daily obligation as one day a peach is hard and the next day, I am fighting the birds for it.
We call these our “bend over and eat peaches”. They are so juicy and so sweet. Many a shirt has been ruined with peach juice. And these peaches have FUZZ! Why don’t store-bought peaches have fuzz?
We have two peach trees. Depending on the size of the crop, there are many peach recipes that are favorites at our home.
This year the first dessert we made is peach crisp. I use the recipe from one of my favorite cook books. If you are not familiar with Susan Branch, she is an author, watercolorist and designer. Though born in Southern California, she lives in an 1849 home in Martha’s Vineyard.
Her cookbooks are works of art with handwritten copy. One of my favorites is The Summer Cookbook. The peach crisp recipe is based on the Peach & Plum Crisp one in this book. You can tell I use this recipe a lot as the page is a bit dog-eared! I believe this book may be out of print, but Amazon has it here.
You can’t go wrong with anything crisp~~apple, peach, pear, and cherry. I use this recipe for all fruits because the “crisp” part is the perfect topping. I adjust the recipe by increasing the quantity of one fruit vs. two. Click here for the recipe.
What is interesting about picking fresh fruit, is that it doesn’t last very long. So I need to use the fruit within a few days. As a result, yesterday we made peach salsa.
I didn’t really follow a recipe this time. This batch is made with tomatoes (cherry ones from the garden), yellow and orange bell pepper (as I didn’t have any green or red), peaches, cilantro, red onion, jalapeño peppers, lime juice, and salt.
This salsa is perfect with chips, but also goes well with fish or chicken. If you would like to get the recipe from a previous post on Peach Salsa, click here. There are two other blog posts with peach recipes~~Tomato, Peach and Corn Salad (which is delicious!) and homemade Peach Pie.
We will be picking more peaches today and maybe peach ice cream this afternoon? At some point, my family will tell me they are “peached out”. That is my cue to preserve the rest of the harvest.
Have a peachy Tuesday!
Barbara at Mantel and Table says
Oh peaches!!! That salsa looks fabulous Mary! And if you make ice cream, I’m on my way down! 😉 Have a lovely time and happy eating!
Mary Crozier says
The salsa is good and I am actually making peach ice cream now. Pie will be this weekend, as I am sure all the peaches will become ripe at once!
Karleen Lee says
Love the post and the recipe book!
Mary Crozier says
Thank you! Just put a peach pie in the oven!
Karleen Lee says
My mouth is watering Mary!! Love the post and the recipe book!
Tanya Lochridge says
Oh…I love tree ripe peaches…fuzz and all!!! Sadly, the peach supply here has dwindled — more and more peach growers had to meet stiff insect control standards set out for them. So over the years, they simply stopped growing them. When my folks first moved here in the 70s — just up the highway from them was a huge grove…I think it was 40 acres. Long story short — Pezzel’s Peaches stopped growing peaches in the late 90s.. It seems the kids did not want to do the work to grow healthy fruit and they cut down every single tree. Heartbreaking. Peach crisp is my favorite! Well, any kind of crisp (except cherry) is always top of my list. Love the cookbook…thinking I might look for it on Amazon!
Mary Crozier says
Tanya,
I love your peach story. It is so sad to think all those trees were cut down! Just put a peach pie in the oven with a new crust recipe. Hoping it is not soggy, but it usually tastes good anyway! Wore your earrings and bracelet yesterday~~so in love with them!
Karen Faiola says
Looks delicious, I love peach deserts. Our peach season isn’t until August/September. Last year I made peach cobbler, it was wonderful warm with vanilla ice cream. I also grilled the peaches. Cut them in half and put them on the grill cut side on the grill. Eat warm with vanilla ice cream. Home made Peach ice cream sound’s great!
Mary Crozier says
Karen,
I may be back east in August to celebrate my aunt’s 100th birthday-of course it all depends on the virus situation. I would love to have east coast peaches. I’ve never grilled them~~sounds delicious!