Freezing Fresh Peaches

Saturday I invited my friend Sherri to go along with me to Ham's Orchards to get some fresh peaches.  Yum- are they wonderful!  Ended up with peaches, blackberries, purple hull peas and some cucumbers that I'm going to teach her how to make into pickles next Saturday.  Will keep you posted on that.
Ham's is a great little place that is not very far from here (in Terrell), and had fresh tomatoes, okra, peas, green beans, jams, jelly's, peach ice cream, pies and lots of other goodies.  It seemed like everyone had the same idea I did, cuz the place was hoppin'!

Are you all familiar with purple hull peas?  I've actually never had 'em but I did buy some and plan to make some to try it very soon.  Sher said you can fix them just like pinto beans, but when I got home, (inquisitive me),  I googled them and learned some neat things about their background and how to prepare them. If you have a story or great way of preparing purple hull peas---mind sharing?

I love farmers markets and all the wonderful things you can find--totally better than the plastic produce in stores!

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Anyways, back to the peaches...

So today I washed up all my peaches and have put them in the freezer to use when I feel like having something peachy and delicious.

If you've never frozen fresh peaches, here's what I do...

1.  Wash your peaches, cut in 1/2 and remove seed, peel (I use a potato peeler) and then slice them into a large bowl.

2. Once you've sliced 'em all up, I squeeze some fresh lemon juice on 'em. Then I add sugar.  Usually 1 cup to each quart of peaches.  The sugar and lemon juice help in the preserving part, so they don't darken and to help them stay firm.  Then you pour them into freezer bags. I like to measure each batch in the bags and label them.  That way when you go to use them for baking, etc. you know how much you have in each.  *I wouldn't microwave to defrost when you need 'em.  Just take out of freezer and place in a bowl in fridge and allow to thaw or fill a bowl up with room temp water and allow bag to thaw out there.

Note:  I cut up about 20 peaches and filled 3 freezer bags with 5 cups each of fresh sliced peaches.

PS- my daugther makes AWESOME fresh peach ice cream, so Sar, they're frozen and ready for when you come home next time!