Peaches

I bought a big box of peaches from a local farm stand this last week.  I usually love their peaches and was super excited to: eat lots, take some to work for snacks, freeze the rest.

They were unusually hard...the peaches from this place are usually ready-to-eat or close to, so that was disappointing.  We set them out to ripen.

and the just stayed hard...

and stayed hard...

and then kind of got soft but not in the right way.

So I decided that I had to just peel and freeze them because they were just going to rot at this rate.

I spent a SUPER frustrating few hours peeling these peaches.  Even with blanching, the peels did not come off!  Ugh! I had to peel each and every peach and I wanted to throw something.

In order to help me be less frustrated, Frank took some of the peaches and made a peach cobbler right then and there.  Not gonna lie, it was yummy.  So that's good! Points for Frank too.

But quite a few of the peaches were weirdly hard.  Some were on the way to rotten.  None were what I would call perfectly ripe.

I got them all sliced up and frozen but it was the worst.

As you may recall, we planted a peach tree this year.  It is tiny and cute but we aren't allowed to get any fruit from it for 3 years.  If it makes fruit, you are supposed to pick it off so that they tree will expend it's energy making roots for the first few years.

Anyway, our little tree was sneaky (and we were not as observant as we should have been) and it formed a peach that was hidden from easy view.  When Frank found it, it was nearly ripe so he decided to just leave it.

Today he picked the peach and it was beautiful. So beautiful.

It had the exact right feeling of softness when squeezed. It was perfectly ripe.

I cut it open.  I peeled it. (The peel slipped right off without blanching even)

and we ate it.

It was so delicious!

I will be one happy camper in a couple of years when I can pick my own peaches!