Preserving peaches for pies, crisps etc

My friend bought us a bushel of peaches at a “bargain” price. Unfortunately they were “seconds”, and SO HARD, that we could not can them. I could not even get the skins off of them with boiling water. So …. I had to be creative … and it worked very well.

What I did was scald them in boiling water for a minute, and then let them cool slightly. I tried to peel them, but it was impossible. I think they were picked too green.

I chopped them up, skin and all, into 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch chunks. These I brought to a boil on the stove with a little bit of sugar (still very slightly tart), some fresh lemon juice and some corn starch. When it was thickened, I took it from the stove and let it cool a bit.

While they were cooling, I lined some pie plates, and some corning wear pans with aluminum foil.

I poured the prepared pie filling into the lines pans, and froze them in the pans overnight.

The next morning, I removed them from the freezer, lifted the frozen filling within the aluminum foil from the pie pan or the corning wear pan, slipped the aluminum foil wrapped filling into a freezer bag, and stacked them back into the freezer and I was finished. I think I had 12 pie fillings there for the winter’s use. Alas, I’ve used two of them already.

When I need a peach crisp, I have taken the frozen filling and slipped it into the original pan, added a crisp topping, and baked it, as per usual. I have even used a freshly prepared pastry bottom shell, slippped the frozen inner part into the shell, topped it with a crisp topping, and baked it.

The second cooking has softened the hard peaches up to an acceptable degree, and with the fresh topping and pie shell, people really think they are getting a freshly made pie from scratch.

.... my little secret. LOL

-- jroot ....... Southern Ontario .......... grow zone 5A ...................."Gardening is an exercise in optimism." ....... . . Author Unknown