Millions of peaches – peaches for free.

My mom and dad have a great peach tree.  I mean, it wouldn’t win any prizes if it were being judged, but it yields amazing peaches.  Best around, I’d say.  So last summer on a visit home, I couldn’t help but rescue every ripe peach hanging from its branches.  Last summer I really got into canning.  And while I really got in touch with my inner Sophia Pitrillo while doing tomato sauce, juice, salsa and more from yummy tomatoes, the peaches were something all my own.

I won’t take you back in time to the exact basics of how I went about canning these peaches for off season months, I hope to have new stories to tell later this summer.  For this story, it’s just important to know that I had several jars stowed away under my counter for days in which I would inevitably crave sweet summer peaches.

The truth is, until I found a simple looking peach cobbler recipe in The Complete Southern Cookbook – another awesome library checkout, I hadn’t much interest in the peaches other than admiring their beauty (despite the fact they didn’t place in the Brown County Fair – ugh!).

So here’s the scoop.

As usual, this was a simple recipe - just a few basic ingredients to make a batter for the peaches.

My beautiful peaches that should have taken a Best of Show ribbon at the fair. 

Now this is where it starts getting intense.  Don’t get grossed out, but I had to melt two sticks of butter before adding the peaches and batter.  Oh how Paula Deen would be proud.

OK little peachies – off for a swim in butter and batter before oven time!  I simply spooned the peaches on top of the butter, then put the batter on top (it sank).

Ahhh looking nice and tan.  Just like a trip to the beach.

Even though delicious, it was hard to get a nice picture of my masterpiece.  So I scooped it out into smaller containers.

Already for co-workers to taste!  All the samples were taken, so I guess they all liked it!

I’ll make this recipe again.  I still have several jars of peaches to use before the next canning adventure starts!  Now, I’m moving to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches – you sing the rest!