Preserving peaches

I had fully intended to freeze and dehydrate local berries this summer so that my family could enjoy them all winter long. (Kind of like the book Blueberries for Sal when Sal's mom tells her that they have to pick blueberries and can them so that they will have food for the winter. As if they will starve if they don't pick blueberries. Love that book!) Well, that didn't happen. Determined to freeze something sweet and fresh, I bought two boxes of local peaches at the Hillsdale Farmers Market last Sunday. Visions of peach cobbler and morning oatmeal flecked with peaches spurred me on.

I pulled out my book Keeping the Harvest, which I've had for 10 years and is in like-new condition (if that gives you any idea about my harvest-keeping history). I remember my mom freezing peaches back home in Indiana. She'd place them in a pie pan already mixed up with all of the spices needed for peach pie, and pop it into the freezer. That way when it was time to make pie, she could just pop out the peach mold and stick it in the crust for baking. I decided just to go with freezer bags. The book recommends using an antioxidant, like ascorbic acid (vitamin C) to keep the peaches from browning. You can buy this at the store in crystalline form, but I went the thrifty route and made my own, crushing up three 500 mg vitamin C tablets in 8 cups of water (a recipe provided in the book).

Basically I just peeled the peaches (they were at the perfect point of ripeness), sliced them, poured a little vitamin C juice over them, put them in quart-size freezer bags and popped them in the freezer. It seemed so easy that I'm afraid I did something wrong. I could have added sugar or honey, but I was going for purity. I love opening the freezer door now and seeing these bags of golden goodness waiting for oatmeal season. It makes so much sense to preserve local foods if you have the space. I think I'm ready to tackle canning next. Next year, that is.