Peach Season

Sure, summer is its own season. But, in my mind, it’s broken up into four “seasons”: strawberry, blueberry, peach, and apple. Around here, we are lucky to have a huge abundance of you-pick farms and roadside stands selling great local produce; it’s spoiled me to the point where it feels just plain weird to eat flown-in peaches or blueberries in December from a grocery store. Those fruits pale in comparison (both literally and figuratively) to what we can get in July and August in New Jersey.

Apples and pumpkin spice: stay in your lane. We’ll get to you in fall. Right now, it’s all about enjoying local peaches! After you’ve filled that basket with ripe fruit, the question is what to do with it? Here are some suggestions from great books you can get at your library:

Almond and Fresh Peach Coffee Cake from The Harvest Baker by Ken Haedrich. I might have recommended this book in a previous blog post, but it bears repeating. So many great recipes for seasonal baking-- and not just dessert! If you grabbed some in-season eggplants and tomatoes while at the farm stand, you could try the Pane Ripieno (Italian Stuffed Bread) for dinner, too! 

Fresh Peach Pie or Designer Peach Pie from The Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Beranbaum’s books have long been reference material for serious home bakers, and for good reason. She spends time finding the tips and tricks that make recipes their very best. Her method of concentrating the fruit juices intensifies the flavor, creating a super juicy pie that explodes with summer “peachy-ness”.

Seasonal smoothies from The Smoothie Project by Catherine McCord. Unfortunately, some of that tree-ripe fruit is going to get dinged up on the way home. Smoothies are a great way to use up the rest after you cut off the bruises! The library has several great smoothie books (check out Superfood Smoothies by Julie Morris) and the seasonal nature of McCord’s recipes fits right in with our limited time for fresh peaches.

You might also want to check out the New York Times Cooking section, available through Mercer County Library. New recipes are published frequently, and make good use of summer produce.  https://mcl.org/resource/health-and-wellness/the-new-york-times/

Peach Season is super short but it’s also a good time to make plans for apple and corn season! Visit the Howell Living History Farm https://www.mercercounty.org/departments/mercer-county-park-commission/howell-living-farm-capital-city/howell-living-history-farm , a jewel of the Mercer County Park System. They have lots of great activities to celebrate the fall harvest.

I hope you get a chance to enjoy some local fruit this summer!

-Sharon GR
Hickory Corner Branch