PEACHES!

While driving back from Palmdale this weekend I passed alot of orchards around Littlerock and along pearblossom highway...so when I passed a fruit stand that had fruit for $9 a box I made a crazy quasi-illegal u-turn ( 138 doesnt have many turnout areas) and went back to check them out. I got 2 28 pound boxes of Friar plums for $9 each, and they had O'Henry peaches for $9 a box as well, but on the way to pay I spied boxes of smaller peaches for $6 (They were just a bit smaller then the regular/med peaches that were selling for more), SCORE! grabbed 2 of those instead.
Actually I didnt grab them, I tried to carry them to Chris' truck 1 box at a time, but do you have any idea just how heavy a 28 pound box of plums is? I thought I was going to drop them. One of the workers must have seen the vein in my neck almost pop out and smiling came out to help me carry the rest of my precious cargo and cram it into the cab of the truck.

I'm quite pleased with myself, I've been stalking the farmers market all summer drooling for peaches but even now at the peak of the season they were $2.99-4.99 a pound. Boo.

A local supermarket finally had them on sale for $0.99 a pound....then a 1 day sale for $0.39 a pound, which I missed because I lost track of which day of the week it was. *facepalm*. It seemed it was going to be a peachless summer for me. I think $0.24 a pound for what the owner said was picked fresh that morning seemed fair.

So now theres nearly 100 pounds of fruit sitting in boxes on my kitchen table. Even tho they are "tree ripe" they were hard as baseballs when I got them, but after 48 hours in our 70 degree apartment most have softened up a little and taste much sweeter. Perfect for hands on attempts in canning them. Right now I have 3 quarts of Brandied peach halves in a combo of light syrup and brandy. I have a batch of lavender syrup on the stove ready for another batch of peaches in lavendar syrup later, and I have a pot of water heating for helping get the peach skins off ( dunk in boiling water, dunk in ice water, skin slips off). Also on my list of recipes to try: Peach Chutney, Peach Melba Jam and Peach salsa.