Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Me: Peach Pie and Puff Pastry

Claire took her boys and my two oldest kids out to pick peaches.  Their peach picking was cut short, according to my daughter, by a swarm of killer bees, but they nevertheless managed to acquire a ton of beautiful tree-ripened peaches that smelled wonderful. When Claire went to pay, she was expecting that it would be over $20 (as her similar haul the previous year was about the same size), but to her surprise, the total was $4. She suspected that the cashier felt sorry for her, with all those ragamuffin kids running around. With all her savings, she spent another 25 cents on a baseball bat-sized zucchini so she could make more zucchini noodles, zucchini fry cakes, zucchini lasagna, and zucchini bread. After getting their free Otter Pops from the cashier, the kids regaled Claire with their, um, game of who could make the loudest fake bodily emissions on the way home. A game suggested by the little lady in the car, my daughter. So so proud. The upshot is that we had all these great peaches to use up quickly, and this is what we came up with.


Peach Pie
Claire is a cinnamon fan.  I love cinnamon, but I insisted that this pie be made with almond. I won her over on this one. I used premade crust from the freezer section, for convenience.   We can debate the wonders of the homemade crust, but here's the thing. With a premade crust, I can get a virtually homemade pie in the oven in a few minutes. It takes me a lot longer to make the crust also, and the end result is no pie. So, premade crust is an acceptable compromise to me.  Trader Joe's has really nice ones.

Peach pie is notoriously messy. Put the pie plate
on a baking pan if you want to keep your oven clean.

6-8 peaches, peeled and sliced
1/4 c tapioca
1/2 c sugar
1 tsp almond flavoring
Pie crust, your choice

Prebake your piecrust for 5-8 minutes at 400 degrees.  Peel and slice the peaches.  If they are not uber-ripe, you might want to consider blanching them first.  Pot of boiling water, dunk the peaches in for about 45 second.  Take them out and the peel should be a cinch.  Mix the peaches with the tapioca, sugar, and almond flavoring.  Place the top crust accordingly.  I used amother crust to make a lattice, but made a second pie with crumb topping.   Bake for 45-50 minutes at 400 degrees on a baking pan lines with foil.  These will bubble over. Wrap the edge of the pie crust with foil if you don't want it to burn.

Peach Cream-cheese Puff Pastries
These are heavenly.  They were gone in the blink of an eye. Blink. Gone. That fast.

2 peaches, sliced/mashed and tossed with a little cinnamon
1 8-oz package cream cheese
6 T confectioner's sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 c whipped topping

Prebake puff pastry according to instructions.  Shell out inner layer, and put in a dollop of cream cheese mixture, and then another dollop of peach mixture.  Replace top.  Bake for 20 minutes, or according to package instructions.

This one was a crumb topping.
I was trying to be artistic with the edge of the crust.
In the bottom of this pie, there is a layer of
the cream cheese filling for the puff pastries. Mmmmmm. 

Would you vote for cinnamon or vanilla? Please leave us a comment!