Introduction: Summer Peach Sauce
In our house peaches are the flavor of summer. We love everything peaches; pie, ice cream, cobbler, smoothies, cake, you name it peaches are the best flavor for summer. Some items need additional peach flavoring like vanilla ice cream, or waffles, or butter cakes.. You get the idea is it isn't made with peaches you can use this easy to make peach sauce to top it and make it better.
Step 1: The Fruit.
Visit your local farmer's market and buy a whole bunch of peaches, or if you have a peach tree of your own just pick some yourself. Chop the peaches into smaller chunks, it doesn't matter if they are similar in size or pretty since they are going to get blended latter anyway.
Step 2: The Fat
I like to use coconut oil for this. you can use unsalted butter as well. I use about one tablespoon of solid oil for each cup of chopped peaches. In this case I was making a small batch so It was four cups chopped peaches and four tablespoons of coconut oil. Melt the oil in a pot deep enough to hold all of your peaches.
Step 3: The First Cooking Stage
make sure the heat is about medium. Dump your peaches into the pot, and add a pinch of kosher salt. Stir occasionally until the peaches start to give up all of their juices and you see plenty of liquid in the pot, this will take about 15 minutes. Turn the heat to med/low and let them simmer for a while as the sauce starts to thicken up
Step 4: The Next Cooking Stage
Use about one tablespoon of brown sugar to each cup of peaches, and a teaspoon or so of corn, or potato starch to help thicken up the sauce. Add the sugar and starch to the peach mixture, and stir until the sugar is completely melted. Let it simmer for another ten minutes as the flavors blend.
Step 5: The Blending.
At this stage turn off the heat and let it cool for a few minutes, try not to stick a spoon in the pot and eat all of the mixture at this point. (trust me it is even better once it has cooled). I use my immersion blender at this step, if you don't have one and aren't looking for an excuse to buy one then you can pour everything into a regular blender. Blend to the consistency of .. chunky apple sauce. YOu can go all the way to smooth sauce but I like it a bit chunky.
Step 6: The Jarring and Enjoying
I like to make it in small batches since I have a small freezer space, when I used to have a large freezer I made it in bigger batches and it freezes really well. If you sterilize your jars and seal them properly They can be kept on a dark shelf for 6 months. Serve over pancakes, or waffles at breakfast, top your ice cream, drizzle it on a butter cake. You can come up with many places to use this sauce. (I occasionally just eat it with a spoon)
Enjoy, it is easy and really really good.