Grand Valley Jewel

The line stretches before us.  Several dozen folks wait, some patiently, some not so much.  My daughter is one of the impatient ones.  She tugs on my hand.

"How much longer, Mommy?"

"Shh ... just a bit longer."

I slip my sandals off and enjoy the cool grass between my toes.  Here under the red and white striped awning the temperature is ten degrees cooler, an oasis in the midst of the hazy August heat.  We shuffle forward and now we see the rickety folding tables they hauled up from the nearby church basement.  Through the crowd we catch a glimpse of the cardboard boxes.  Several sit empty in the grass.

"Mommy?  Will they run out?"

I shake my head, smiling.

Absently I tap my toes to the sound of the fiddle that filters through the noisy throng.  Somewhere behind us is the make-shift bandstand and the bluegrass music has drawn a crowd.  There's a smattering of applause to my left where I remember seeing a sign for a pie-eating contest.  Someone must be finished ... and sticky.

My little girl plucks at my hand and we step forward a few more paces.  We're almost there.  She grins up at me and bounces on her feet in anticipation.

I tilt my head back and inhale deeply.  I catch a whiff of the sugary sweet scent of a funnel cake.  The aroma of fried dough makes my mouth water, but I'm content to wait for my own treat.

Ahead of us the man dressed in ancient overalls nods politely and steps away from the table.  It's our turn.  The old orchard wife dabs at her forehead with the yellow-flowered apron she's tied around her waist and looks up at us.  Her leathery face creases around her eyes as she smiles at us.  In her hands she holds out two gems, one for each of us.

"Thank you," we chorus.

Fresh picked yesterday, the delicate downy skin is a blushing orange hue.  One bite and juice spills down our chins.  We laugh and slurp.  Peaches, the jewel of our Grand Valley.

______________________________

Linking up with The Red Dress Club (twice - here's the other post).  This week's prompt:  350 words to write a piece in which a local or regional item or industry plays a role.  Palisade, Colorado's annual Peach Festival is a local tradition, but their peaches are world famous!

Homemade peach preserves ... the taste of summer all year long.

Food For Thought - Revisited

This week, Lydia learned a new word.

Peasheeze.

Daddy came home with two boxes of peaches and Liddy ate most of them!  Honestly, if I didn't watch that girl like a hawk, she would have eaten through the first box on Friday morning.

She is the stickies, juiciest, sweetest, tastiest little cutie!

In honor of peach season, we have been eating them whole, slicing them to put on our ice cream and cereal, savoring a serving (or two) of peach crisp, freezing them for peach smoothies and piling peach salsa on everything.  Or just on a spoon.

Drip, slurp, mmmmm ....


Last year about this time I highlighted this succulent fruit on another Food For Thought and it's definitely worth revisiting.

Enjoy ... and I recommend Palisade Peaches ... just sayin'.

Peasheeze ... err ... Peaches

Food For Thought

Back in college, my roommates and I loved to watch (and watch and watch) a silly old movie called "The Private Eyes".  It featured Don Knotts and Tim Conway as two detectives sent to investigate the murder of Lord Morley.  Don Knotts and Tim Conway, of course, are both completely incompetent and the movie essentially consists of 91 minutes of slap-stick humor and silly dialogue ... and we loved it!  One of my favorite (and oft quoted) scenes is when the two detectives are in the mansion's pantry looking for clues.  Don Knotts is carrying on this monologue of great importance, recounting what they had learned so far.  He and turns to Tim Conway for a response only to find that Conway has stuffed his mouth full of peaches from one of the many dusty canning jars on the shelves.  With a sheepish look he asks, "Pleethez?"  It still makes me laugh!  And then there are those silly non-rhyming notes ...



So ... this weekend's "Food For Thought" centers around peaches!

I would like to share with you three different ways to enjoy this summer's sweetest fruit.

Peach Crisp
(This is a recipe from my mom's cookbook.)

Ready for the topping...

2 lb. sliced peaches
1/2 cup sugar

Topping:
2 cup flour (we use 1/2 wheat and 1/2 white)
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 t. salt
2 t. baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 T. cinnamon-sugar

Grease a 9x13 pan and layer fruit and 1/2 cup sugar.  In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients.  With a fork, cut in the eggs until it's crumbly.  Spread this mixture on top of the fruit.  Drizzle with butter and sprinkle cinnamon-sugar on top.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes until golden brown.

Ready for the ice cream!

We serve this warm with ice cream on top.  To tell you the honest truth, it really doesn't matter what fruit you put in (apples, berries, cherries) ... we really love it for the crust.  In fact, this week I made a crisp in an 8x8 pan, but I made the full recipe of the crust so that it was thick ... yuuuummmmmm!


Peach Salsa
(This is a little recipe I put together ... a little of this and a little of that!)

Do those go together?

5 peaches, peeled and chopped into small pieces (think about what would fit on a tortilla chip)

The juice of 1 lime

1/2 cup cilantro, coarsely chopped

1 small red bell pepper, chopped

1 jalapeno, chopped (only use as much as you want)

1 clove of garlic, minced

A perfect mix of hot & sweet.

In a small bowl, toss all the ingredients together.  Start with 1/2 the jalapeno and add more to taste.  You might want to add a pinch of salt, too, to help bring out the flavors.  We serve this on tacos, with chips or on taco salad.  You can also follow the same recipe with mangos - it's delicious!

This past week we came home from church with a 20 pound box of peaches ... and I didn't have time to can.  So ... I followed in my mother-in-law's footsteps and froze about half the box.  Now we can use them this winter in crisps, muffins and smoothies.

Frozen Peaches

(Not so much a recipe ... but a way to keep the fruit flies away.)

Ready for the freezer ...

Ready for another crisp!

Take a cookie sheet and cover it with waxed paper.  Slice the peaches in half, remove the pit (and any brown spots), slice into 8 pieces and spread them out on the cookie sheet.  Make sure they are in a single layer.  When you run out of room, simple cover the peaches with another piece of waxed paper and start again.  When you have processed all the peaches, place the loaded cookie sheet in the freezer over-night.  In the morning you can pop the individual peach slices off the waxed paper and store them in a ziplock freezer bag.  Then they are ready for you to grab a handful to use in your next recipe!