More than one way to skin a Peach!

There is more than one way to skin a peach ya know! Peaches are weird. Don’t get me wrong, I love the sweet, slightly citrus taste of a warm ripe peach. But it’s the skin, the caterpillar like fuzz. Gives my spine a tingle, and my lips get all quivery and heebie jeebyish when they come near a fuzzy peach.

My remedy. Skin it. Peel the darn peach.

Growing up my mom canned, froze, and made jam from bushels of peaches. So I’ve done my fare share of peeling peaches. On hot, muggy August days, no air conditioning, fly tapes hanging from the ceiling, a bushel or two of peaches in the middle of the kitchen floor, a giant Tupperware bowl between my legs, and my arms dripping to my elbows with peach juice. This is how I spent my summer days as a kid. My kids on the other hand are living the life of Riley, drinking Pepsi poolside. I’m here to tell ya!  I wouldn’t trade, those memories for anything…..we had some good laughs sitting around for hours peeling, canning, thunking jars to make sure they were sealed. Ahhhh those were the good ol’ days!

How do you skin a peach?

Until recently I thought there was only one way to skin a Peach! Little did I know you could berl the skins right off the fuzzy little suckers!

 

You will need a pot of boiling or berling water, which ever you prefer, an ice bath, and your peaches.  Plunk the peaches in the boiling water for 2 minutes, remove them with a slotted spoon and place them directly in the ice bath for another 2 minutes.

 

The skin should slip right off with your fingers.  Key word should.  This method worked beautifully on 50% of the peaches the other half, I ended up peeling the skin off with a knife.  Once you have the skin off then you can proceed to the directions below for pitting your purdy naked peach.

 

This is how I grew up skinnin’ peaches:

1. Slice the fuzz ball around it’s middle, there is a definite line around a peach, made just for your knife to cut around the pit.

2. Once you’ve cut the peach around it’s mid section, it’s still attached because of the pit in the center, so you will need to gently grip the peach with your thumbs on either side of the line you just sliced, now ever so carefully twist the peach off it’s pit.

 

Now take your thumb and pluck the pit out of the middle.  If the peach is ripe this shouldn’t be a problem, if the peach is still a little hard, then you might have to be a bit more forceful to get the pit out.

 

Ripeness is also key for skinning, if a peach is ripe, the skin will pull away from the fruit quite easily with the help of a knife. Just place the knife under the edge of the skin and pull toward you. If your peach is not quite ripe enough, you may need to peal it more like an apple. Just be careful not to cut away too much of the luscious fruit with the skin.

 

The hardest part is done all you need to do is, slice the purdy thang.

 

 

How do you like to eat peaches? Pie? Jam? Cobbler? Ice Cream?

I love to eat peaches all of the above, but one of my favorites is sliced fresh in a bowl au naturale!

Peachy Keen!