peaches are in the house

yesterday, the peach truck came to our local garden center.  The 25 pound boxes work out to a cost of 66 cents per pound, which is a 30 cent savings over buying at the grocery store and the peaches are HUGE. 

I bought 3 boxes.  I worked on one box yesterday.  The plan was to peel, pit and slices the peaches so they can frozen to be used for pies, smoothies and milkshakes over the winter.  The other 2 boxes will be canned, some canned peach slices, some canned peach jam, and some canned as peach mango salsa.  I will be able to give peaches away to friends and family too. I am so excited.

Here is the process I used.  First on the bottom end of the peaches, cut an "X" into the peach.

boil the peaches for about 5-10 minutes, this loosens the skins.  I could fit 6 peaches into the pot at a time.

Put the cooked peaches into cold water in the sink.  This should continue to loosen the skin so it peels off.  In my case, it did not, so I had to use the potato peeler to peel the skins.  The skin came off easily.  I boiled about half the peaches before starting to peel them.

Bug came in to help too.  He started by peeling the peaches but decided he liked playing with the peaches in the water instead.

once we had a good bunch of peaches peeled, I started slicing them up.  Bug really waned to do this, but I would not let him since the peaches were so slippery and I worried that he would cut himself with the sharp knife.  I need to let him try these things though.

While I sliced the peaches, Bug was bagging them for freezing.  We found that about 2 peaches sliced fit into the sandwiches bags we were using. Through all of this, we were also finishing boiling the remaining peaches.

It took about 1.75 hours (1 hour, 45 minutes) to get all of it done.

in the end, we had 6 freezer bags, filled with 4 sandwich bags of peaches, which works out to about 48 peaches total.

Lots of yumminess for the winter months.

All the peaches were put in the deep chest freezer we have in the basement.  There is still plenty of room for the rest of peaches.  Although, all the ones I will be canning will go in the room under the stairs since they need to be in dark, cool places until they are used. 

We have to go now, lots to do today- cleaning, organizing and enjoying some entertainment.  Pictures coming tomorrow of all our fun from today.

Love and hugs,
Deb