Peaches and Nectarines

They harvest them so early that they haven't had time to even start ripening! Cut them up and cook them with a little sugar?

Either sliced and baked in a tart or poached in sugar syrup with a touch of vanilla.

I have found some are much better than others at ripening at home.

Yes, poach gently and have with yogurt?
Last year I seemed to have bought too many and made jam from a mix of peaches and nectarines and it is very good.

Poach in some Prosecco and serve with a good vanilla ice cream. Yummy.

They are best eaten in their natural state, ripe!

We've had delicious ones from Co-op and also Lidl. Rock hard ones from Waitrose that just would not ripen.

My only tip is to buy them near the "best by" date for a good price, don't refrigerate them (despite what the instruction says), and keep an eye on them as the eating window is small.

I take the dud ones back to Waitrose for a refund, tomatoes too, the staff at our local branch know me by now and that I will ask for my money back if the expectations generated by the promises on the packaging do not deliver e.g. "Ready to eat".

They go very nicely in a crumble with any apples, rhubarb, etc.

I’ve given up buying them anywhere except M&S - their ‘perfectly ripe’ ones are good.

Any others never really ripen properly, they just go wrinkly.

Gr8dame

When I was under the weather recently a friend kindly sent me a fruit basket but sadly the peaches and nectarines were like bullets. I put one in the sun and another in a paper bag with a banana so that the natural gasses would ripen the hard fruits- neither method worked. Any suggestions please?

Thanks for all your ideas I’ve decided to buy “ready now” from M&S which is my nearest and 9 miles from where I live.

I once had a punnet of nectarines which never ripened so cooked them into this cobbler recipe. It was delicious! I have since adapted it for apple, rhubarb, banana and blackberries, all of which are good.
www.myrecipes.com/recipe/easy-peach-cobbler

We had peaches from Tesco last week, the bog standard ones not the ‘finest’ and they felt really hard but looked ripe.
On tasting, they were ripe and quite soft. I was very surprised as they felt hard until bitten into.
They were lovely.

I stopped buying fresh fruit from supermarkets ages ago. Pears are the worst. They are either bullet hard or rotting. No ripe stage. The best solution for me is to buy from the local street market where fruit is always ripe, or on the point of it. Where do stall holders get their stock?

I am looking forward to the Donut peaches coming into the shops, as they ripen beautifully at home. I have to eat them over the sink as they are so juicy!

“Shysal” I saw some donut peaches in Lidl the other day. I agree they are lovely.

I bought some donut peaches ages ago and they are still rock hard, but completely wrinkled and on their way to drying out. Nor ripe stage in-between.

I had some really nice ripe peaches from Sainsbury’s the other day - 5 of them in a cardboard base thing - no plastic!

There's a cartoon about avocados somewhere - Not ripe, not ripe, not ripe, not ripe - bad!

I'm looking forward to picking ripe plums from the tree at my new bungalow

Oldbat1

“Shysal” I saw some donut peaches in Lidl the other day. I agree they are lovely.

And easier to eat. You don’t have to open your mouth as wide ?

Recently I bought nectarines and peaches from Sainbury's. Bought together and hard. After a few days of sharing the same fruit bowl they ripened. Each of the fruits was juicy, soft and delicious. None of them went off.