Peach Covered Peaches

Every August my husband drives us four hours to a peach orchard in Georgia, and every August we come home with more peaches than any family of five has ever needed. The kids fill buckets. The dog gets a peach. I fill the back seat until we have to put the cooler on my lap.

Then we get home, and I have three days to deal with about forty pounds of fruit before it all turns. That’s when things get desperate. That’s when the peach jam happens, and the peach salsa, and the peach smoothies, and eventually this.

One year I’d roasted a pan of peach halves and wanted a sauce to go on top. I looked in the fridge for something to pour over them, and all I had was more peaches, half a jar of peach preserves, and a can of peach nectar my mother-in-law left behind at Easter. So I covered the peaches with peaches. Then I chopped up some dried peaches and covered those peaches too.

My daughter looked at the pan and asked, “Is there anything in here that isn’t a peach?” and I said, “No, sweetheart, and there never will be.” She has since requested it for her birthday twice.

It’s warm and sticky and tastes like the inside of a summer afternoon. We eat it with vanilla ice cream, but honestly, you could put a little peach sorbet on there and really commit.