Peaches For Me

I love picking fruit. I am super excited to go blueberry picking tomorrow with my mom at Tougas Farm. I went peach picking last Friday with my two youngest children. Of course, picking a peck of peaches takes all of five minutes. At eighteen dollars a peck, it might be considered a bit pricey. It's completely worth it, though. The husband came home from work and said, "I had a couple of those peaches...Oh, my! I cut them in half, bit into one and juice went flying everywhere." There. That's all I need. And Silas will sit and eat a whole peach. The peaches are sweet, soft and juicy. They cannot compare to the hard and tart peaches at the grocery store. My father said, "Blueberries at the grocery market are fifty cents cheaper per pint!" Right. But there is nothing like getting into a blueberry bush trying to find the plumpest berries before someone else does. There is nothing like the feeling of foraging for your own food. Well, it's not really foraging...but there are definitely moments when it can feel like it.

My mother has blackberries in her backyard. We picked about two quarts yesterday. I got stuck by prickers and thorns. I had weird bugs land in my hair. Still worth it.

A friend of mine gave me a recipe for a Swedish Apple Pie where she replaces the apples with peaches, pears or even berries. I used this recipe and made a delightful Blackberry Peach Pie.

I used a deep-dish glass pie plate. I peeled and sliced a zillion peaches. They were super juicy and slipping out of my hands. The skins came right off. I tossed in a total of about a cup of blackberries. In a bowl, I mixed together 1 1/2 sticks of homemade butter, 1 cup white whole wheat flour, 1 cup demerara sugar, and one blueish-green Araucana pastured egg. I dumped the mixture over the fruit and baked at 350 degrees for 55 minutes. It probably could have used another five minutes. Also, since the fruit was so super juicy, I should have added some flour or cornstarch to the fruit to help congeal all the juices. I actually dumped out some of the juice from the pie. It still tastes so yummy.

I was going to can the peaches, but I don't know if I'm ready for all that. And now I've only enough peaches for another pie...or snacks. Although, I could get another peck tomorrow...