TOO MUCH PEACHY

Q. “I am an old senior dude living at home alone. I picked up a flat of peaches from a grandson’s fundraiser. Any ideas or inspiration for preparing them for friends?” Tom O.

A. From one old senior dude to another, here are my thoughts, suggestions and recipe ideas:

Most really good peaches are ripe when we buy them. Peaches from the better orchards ripen on the tree, not on the counter. They soften only after we bring them home. If I haven’t eaten them when they're almost too soft, I freeze them in chunks after washing, pitting, and cutting into 4ths or 8ths (depending on size), skin on. Then I bag or container them. I'll use them throughout the fall and winter that way, mostly with some sort of cream (yogurt, ice cream, Bircher muesli).

Here are a couple of recipes that use ripe peaches and that I favor. I especially like the guac. This agrodolce freezes perfectly and that way I have some for when people come over.

Here also are some general tips on using up peaches, from something that I wrote to a local grocer that sells the fantastic fruit from Ela Family farms on Colorado’s Western Slope. The advice applies to all good, ripe peaches:

Ripening: No need to keep these peaches on the kitchen counter for a day or two; they are ready to drip juice down your chin when you buy them. Ela Family Farms is unique because it picks its peaches from the orchard only when each peach is at its peak. This is not common when shipping peaches. As Steve Ela says, “Peaches, once picked, will for sure get softer and juicier, but they will not get any sweeter. For sweetness, they must remain on the tree until the last possible moment; only then are you getting a true tree-ripened peach.”

Storing: Keep Ela Farms peaches in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator, uncovered, unwrapped, unwashed. Wash them just before eating them. (Other farms’ peaches may not be fully ripe. Ripen them at room temperature, preferably in a paper bag.)

Pitting: Slice along the fruit’s “seam,” in a full circle, around the stone, then again into fourths. Some Ela Family Farms peaches are clingstone, so separate the sections with the edge of a knife, not by twisting them “off” the pit.