Millions of peaches, peaches for me

I have peaches on my mind - and in my stomach - today. I mentioned before that we have three boxes of peaches that were delivered Wednesday from Colorado, and they are absolutely delicious! Surprisingly, the Western slope of Colorado is a great place to grow peaches, and this year the growing season was ideal.

Besides being incredibly delicious, peaches are nutrient dense. One medium peach has about 11% of the recommended daily amount of vitamin C for an adult. It also is rich in vitamin A and fiber. Peaches also have a reasonable amount of potassium, copper, manganese, and niacin - plus lower amounts of lots of other good stuff. All wrapped up in nature's candy!

So, what in the world are we going to do with three boxes of peaches? Well, we've already made a pretty good dent in the first box just eating them. My 2 year old loves them, but sadly, my 5 year old - the same one who would eat a whole peach for dinner when he was 2 - now won't even touch them. I'm on a mission to get him to eat a peach with an open mind but am failing miserably so far. Maybe next year.

Yesterday, I made peach bread (recipe to follow). It was a huge hit with everyone. This is another good place to add flaxseed meal. You could probably substitute some wheat flour for some of the all-purpose flour, but I haven't tried that. This makes a very moist dessert type bread - kind of like banana bread, only moister and with peaches.

We had pork tenderloin with peach tomato barbeque sauce for dinner. We've been enjoying that recipe for years now. (And, yes, it's from Martha Stewart. You wanna make something of it? She's fussy, but man, that woman has some good recipes!) Sadly, I had to substitute apricot preserves for peach jam in the recipe because I could not find a single peach jam or preserve that did not have tons of HFCS in it.

We finished the night with a simple peach sauce over vanilla ice cream. Simply saute about 3 peaches in a little butter, about a TBSP of brown sugar per peach (or less if desired), a tsp of cinnamon, and a splash of vanilla to make the sauce. YUM!

This weekend, we'll be freezing peaches. We're going to try Alton Brown's method. (Speaking of that, can anyone tell me why he puts paprika on his peaches when he freezes them? Unless I hear a good reason, I think that I will not be adding paprika.) We'll also be making these ingenious little peach crisps and putting them in our freezer for later in the year. I think that we'll try this recipe from Dani Spies using peaches instead of strawberries. And, of course, we'll be eating them straight from the box - the best way of all! If you have a favorite peach recipe, send it my way - we could really use it!

I think that we can safely say that I am NOT a food photographer! Still, can't you see the peachy goodness in this bread? Look close and you'll see little peach chunks.

Peach Bread

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 TBSP flaxseed meal (optional)
2 cups very ripe, mashed peaches (about 5 or so medium peaches)
1 egg, slightly beaten
2 TBSP butter or margarine, melted
1/2 cup raisins or nuts (optional)

In a bowl, mix flour, sugars, salt, and baking soda. Put mashed peaches in a large bowl. Add beaten egg, melted butter. Stir in raisins or nuts. Stir in flour mixture. Pour into a 9x5" greased loaf pan. Let stand 20 minutes. Bake at 350 for 45-55 min. Cool bread in pan 15 min; remove from pan and finish cooling on wire rack.