Our 20 pound box of peaches came with two layers. I forgot to count when we started grabbing peaches for baking, eating and cooking, but did remember to count once the first batch of salsa had been made. The bottom layer had 24 peaches on it, so I figure we started out with 40-50 peaches (if each peach actually averaged 7 oz, based unscientifically on one weighed peach, we had about 45 peaches).
The peach preservation stats:
12- frozen
8- salsa
6- peach lavender jam
6 – cranberry-peach conserve
In addition to salsa, jam and frozen peaches we used some up right away. I made peach muffins the morning after we got the box. 1 peach gave me 1 1/4 cups of roughly diced peach (though this did not hold true for the rest of my measuring). And 4 peaches, cooked into 2 cups of very thick peach nectar. I think I actually screwed the recipe up somehow since it measured peaches in quarts and I suspect was referring to the picking basket quart and not a volume quart. With the peach nectar I made the Peach Iced Tea from Super Natural Foods.
4 – peach nectar for iced tea
1 – buttermilk peach muffins
That adds up to 37 peaches. One had a bad spot that grew too much before I got around to using it (38 peaches) and the rest must have been eaten in hand, probably at least one peach per day during the duration of my canning craziness (that definitely gets us in the 45-50 count range).
And the results:
3 pints of salsa (the 4th was a hair shy of water-bath ready so we just enjoyed most of it that night with chips and then stuck the jar in the fridge)
9 half pints of peach lavender jam (the recipe was supposed to make 6 cups, I’m not sure what happened)
8 half pints + a couple leftover tablespoons of cranberry-peach conserve (again was supposed to yield 6 cups)
The lesson learned – always prep at least one extra jar, you might not use it but it is much better than scrambling to prep more jars when you still have hot jam in the pot and have filled all the jars. I prepped 5 pint jars for salsa and only used 4; I prepped 8 jars for the jam-round 1 and scrambled for a 9th, which didn’t even fit in my water-bath and so went straight to the fridge; I prepped 5 pint jars for salsa and only used 4; luckily I instinctively prepped 8 jars for jam-round 2. The extra jam also meant I had to go back to the store for a second box of half-pint jars, and I ended up with the regular mouth half-pints instead of the wide-mouth half-pints since the former was on sale while the latter was not. What are those four red filled jars on the left? That will be explained in the pickle post.
Tuesday, around lunch time, I didn’t want to cook (it was a trend) but needed to eat. So I decided to make make a quick bean salad. It started with a can of garbonzo beans, then I grabbed a small zucchini, make that two, that needed to be eaten – oh a quick saute in olive oil with some herbs (actually I’ve been using Penzey’s Mural of Flavor as my go-to lazy blend lately), then I decided to chuck in some kalamata olives and sun-dried tomatoes (see what did I tell you? boring to hmmm, this is pretty good). Hmm, I think this needs a little bit of tart, so I splashed the last of my red wine vinegar in the bowl and scooped myself up about half of it lest I loose control and eat the entire bowl. IM not generally accurate O this made two nice sized servings. I took the bowl and my laptop outside to enjoy the fabulous weather (high of 75) hoping it would inspire me to start writing – but it didn’t.
Tuesday night I decided that something must be done about our over-flowing fridge. I cleaned out all the icky leftovers (sigh, I hate when I don’t effectively manage our leftover consumption) and made a big mess of roasted vegetables as well as a potato-celeriac mash (woooo! that darn celeriac is finally gone). Does anyone happen to know if celeriac always floats when in water or was mine just really too old to cook? Trust me, you don’t really want a recipe for either of these things. This 
Skipping all the way to Sunday night, we made a very Summer Meal, if a bit on the yellow side. Corn on the cob (from the grocery store, because I was craving it), sauteed summer squash (yet again with that Mural of Flavor) and a big green salad (lettuce, cucumber, carrots, radishes all from the CSA and a tomato from the FM) topped with homemade buttermilk ranch dressing. This time I didn’t follow a recipe, and just sort of chucked stuff in, only grabbing a small measuring cup to get more or less equal quantities of sour cream, mayo and buttermilk. It also had garlic, salt, a handful of chives, a handful of dried parsley (oops, forgot that at the store) and black pepper. I did end up adding a bit more buttermilk to get it to a thinner consistency. We should have had green beans too, but that would have required a third pot, which seemed like two pots too many for such a simple meal and TheHusband declared corn, squash and salad enough food.
8/4: Quiche with that chard, yup that chard that amazingly made it in my fridge for way longer than I expected. I jazzed it up with the remaining feta and some oil-packed sun dried tomatoes – they might no longer be “in” with the foodie crowd but they sure can give a bit oomph to an otherwise drab dish and I consider them a posh pantry staple
8/4: Crazily, despite being a Tuesday (share night) and cooking one dish that could have been dinner, but was intended for lunches I had to go and make an indian “feast” (I joke about feast because I generally make one-pot type dinners and this required 1 pot, 2 pans and a few bowls). If there had been anyway that I could have just had us eat quiche for dinner I would have, but I’d had ingredients for these two dishes sitting in my fridge for over a week and kept putting off cooking them due to the horrible heat. That cauliflower wasn’t going to last forever, neither was the cabbage, and I’d already re-bought the potatoes once (after using the first round for the yummy green bean and potato salads that I made). Anyway. I cooked up a storm that Tuesday night and had the dishes to prove in on Wednesday morning (also, we ate after 10 pm – oops). Smitten Kitchen’s 
8/7: Camping! And eating delicious grilled sausages (don’t have ketchup? order some onion rings at a fast food place on the drive to the camp site), and super pretty veggie hobo packets. Seriously, I should start looking for purple potatoes whenever camping is in plans. These hobo packets are made 
It was hot. I didn’t want to cook. In fact one day I opened the fridge and all I wanted to eat was a bowl of raspberries, so I did. Then I wondered why raspberries felt so decadent, perhaps it is because when I bought them in the grocery store I had to wait for those itty bitty half-pint things to go on sale, while when I buy them at the Farmer’s Market as part of a half-flat I can get them for 2.50 a pint, which makes my bowl of raspberries come in at a whopping $1.25, I know I’ve made meals that cost more than that per serving. Plus a little restrained decadence is good now & then.
7/30: took advantage of the crockpot and made a pot of black beans which became 
7/31: frozen TJ’s veggie masala burger with cucumber slices and cheddar cheese – my toaster oven to the rescue. I try to keep some frozen veggie burgers and pitas in the freezer to make quick lunches, and I should remember how great cucumber slices are as a side-dish
8/2: While at the Farmer’s Market I decide to make 
I also picked up a few tomatoes at the farmers market and finally was able to make the long awaited 
8/3: Things are cooling down finally. I make a batch of confused leftovers with sauteed green beans, eggplant, red bell pepper, green onions and curry powder (not worth recreating) for lunch and then we finally make zucchini-feta pancakes for dinner (with mint from my own mint plant) and plain yogurt along side.
You can find this list, in the right-hand column of the blog it is called 