Florida Peaches

We have a peach orchard in Ocala!  Little did I know.....  Up off of County Road 316 is a little field of peach trees.  The farmer who tends these beauties is from Miami and he is very proud of this fruit he is growing!  He has people from Georgia that come here for his peaches!

These are the BEST peaches EVER! Florida peaches are the sweetest and juiciest peaches I have come across in my years of eating. 

The picture quality is poor but you can still tell how juicy these beauties are! When you eat them fresh like this you have to be careful you don't drip juice down the front of your shirt!

I have never picked peaches before and I thought it would be a fun thing to do.  The first weekend Zman and I went on a whim just to check it out. After eating a bunch of them and freezing what was left over, I decided that the next weekend we would go again and pick at least 2 buckets of them.  Wouldn't you know it, I couldn't get a single one of my clan to go with me!  So I went for some mommy time alone. : ) 

I plugged in my book I am currently "reading"(The Last Camel Died at Noon) and proceeded to pick the 2 buckets I had hoped to get!  This was the last weekend for picking the peaches.  Sadly, there was alot of fruit that was wasted in the orchard and the smell of fermenting peaches was strong! 

It didn't take me long to fill up 2 buckets and when I got home it took me about 2 hours to pit and slice them up for freezing.  I gave some fresh ones to my neighbors and parents, and some I kept out for us to eat fresh and some I used in a cobbler- YUM!  So now I have enough peaches in the freezer for about 6 months worth of smoothies and pies/cobblers.  : )

  

Speaking of which, here is a really easy recipe for peach(or any fruit) cobbler:

in a meduim-sized baking dish, melt 1 stick of butter in a 375 oven

Meanwhile, combine in a bowl:

1cup self rising flour

1 cup sugar

1 cup milk

(This batter will be lumpy-you just don't want the lumps real big)

 When the butter has melted, pour the batter into the baking dish - DO NOT STIR!

Throw in your fruit.  You can use a large can of peaches, in which case you should use a bit of the juice too. Or if you use peach pie filling it's even better!  If you use fresh fruit, use more than you think you should.  If you think there's enough in it, go ahead and throw more in! 

Bake this concoction for about 30 to 40ish minutes.  You want the edges to be a dark brown and the middle to be a goldenish brown.  Serve with vanilla ice cream and try not to eat the whole dish in one sitting(but I bet you come back again and again to "even-up" the edges)!