When you are a gardener, of any kind, you run the risk of everything becoming ripe at the same time. If you have ever grown zucchini you know what I mean. After a while you are trying ANYTHING to get rid of your crop before it rots. This is how I am with peaches.

For those of you who don’t know, there are two basic types of peaches – free stone and cling stone. Cling stone peaches are the ones where the flesh clings to the pit. Free stone peaches are the ones where the flesh breaks free of the stone easily. I prefer free stone peaches because the fibrous cling peach’s flesh gets stuck in my teeth. Free stone peaches tend to have more reddish tones close to the pit as well.

We have a lovely drought tolerant dwarf peach tree in our yard, and yes it is a free stone tree. Our whole family loves them and we especially love to eat them super ripe so the juice drips down your arm and off your elbow. I find myself standing over the sink to eat a peach from our tree. This is the third year of production. The first year I managed really well. The second year I canned (Moment of Truth: while I loved the procedure of canning, I didn’t like the results on the peaches, maybe because they get SO ripe SO quickly and they were a little mushy). This year, after deciding NOT to can the peaches I was left with a PILE of peaches. I had so many peaches that I wasn’t even pissed off at the birds for getting at some of them.

Anyone who knows me, knows when it comes to dessert, I am a chocoholic. I don’t really care for fruit desserts, unless it is ice cream. I love Cherry Vanilla, Raspberry Ripple and Peach. If you are not a fruit dessert person, there are only so many cobblers and pies one can make and enjoy. Only so many smoothies one can drink. So what to do with the rest of them?

Well, some peaches were frozen for use later in the year. I gave some away. We eat them. I recreated the long since discontinued Schwann’s Peach Ice Cream that I ate gallons of when I was pregnant. A pie was made with a screwed up crust – I never mess up pie crust, but this time I did. A cobbler was taken to a pot luck and yet I still have more. What to do?

Recipe hunt on the internet. Here are some tasty ideas I found:

Peach Cobbler by the Neelys – I cut the 2C (yes 2 CUPS) of Brown sugar out and I a sub raw sugar for the white
Stone Fruit Sangria
Peach Crisp
Individual Peach Upside Down cakes

And here is how to make Peach Ice Cream that tastes like Schwann’s used to make:

• 1 pt heavy whipping cream
• 1 C whole milk
• ¾ C sugar
• 1 t vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt
• 1 C Pureed peaches
• ¾ C Diced peeled peaches – frozen

Combine cream, milk and sugar with a wire whip. Gradually add pureed peaches to the cream mixture and set into the fridge to cool for at least 1 hour. Put mixture into an ice cream machine, and according to MFR directions mix. Half way thru add the vanilla. When the mixture is almost ready, add in the frozen diced peaches. Continue with the mfr instructions for the ice cream machine. Place finished product in the freezer. Depending on the size of your machine, you may need to do this in 2 batches.

This is the model I use

This week’s Food Memories include meeting another food blogger at a pot luck (more on that soon), cooking for friends and family, making the deposit on our 25th Anniversary party and a dinner out with my main squeeze.

Until next week, go out and make your OWN Food Memories.