This weekend, I made a peach pie.
I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a peach pie. My family doesn’t make peach pies. We make pies of all kinds of berries and of apples and rhubarb, but not of peaches. We make raisin pie and mincemeat pie, but not peach pie. I’m not sure why.
Last weekend, though, I bought some peaches at the farmers’ market to can. (We can peaches.) The farmer assured me that the variety – which I’d never had before – were ideal for canning so I gave them a try. I bought enough for two batches – about 14 quarts – in the canner.
They were the peaches from hell. They were sweet and ripe, fragrant little beasts, but they refused to peel. Even when doused with boiling water – which always works on peaches – this bunch held on to their skins. They had a lot of bruises, because they were ripe, and I ended up cutting a lot of the fruit away. I wasn’t very happy by the time the canner was loaded up with the first batch, but I didn’t want to make jam with the rest.
Then I thought of peach pie. How hard could a peach pie be, when the fruit was so ripe and sweet? I had enough pastry in the fridge for the bottom of a pie crust, so I rolled it out, sliced peaches into it (yup, I had to peel some more of the little beasts), sprinkled the fruit with lemon juice (to keep it from turning brown) and some minute tapioca to thicken the inevitable juice. They were so sweet that I didn’t add any sugar.
I didn’t have any pastry for the top, so I made the kind of crumble that I put on top of apple crisps – that’s 1/2 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 2/3 cup of thick cut oatmeal mixed together then 1/4 cup of melted butter cut into it. It was a bit too much for a little pie, but I piled it on anyway. Then I put the pie into the fridge while the oven heated (you get better pastry that way).
The pie went into the oven for 15 mins at 425 then another half an hour or so at 350. It was bubbling around the edges when it was done.
And WOW! It was sooooooooooo good. Now, why didn’t we make peach pie all those years? It’s easy and delicious. I’ll be making it from this point onward, that’s for sure.
Does your family make peach pie?
Deborah Cooke: Author 
2 responses to “Peach Pie”
I love making peach pie. It is just different enough that there usually aren’t duplicates showing up.
You are my new role model. How do you have time to do so much and keep up with writing!?? Amazing!
LikeLike
Well, I wish someone had told me about peach pie earlier. It’s so easy and so good. I don’t think I’d ever even tasted one before this. So, you’re right – it is “just different enough”!
As for getting stuff done, I’m one of those types who always has to be doing something. And I find that the more I have to do, the more efficient I am at getting stuff done. There’s also a lot of flotsam and jetsam of half-finished jobs around the house, but I’ll get to them. Doing something creative – like knitting or baking – really helps with my writing. I’m more a prolific writer when I do other things too, so I’ll keep knitting!
LikeLike