If someone could really and truly find a way to bottle the way a beautifully ripe peach or nectarine smells at the height of summer, they’d own the world. I don’t mean that fake peach stuff in candles that passes for peach; it’s the real smell of a summer peach that I crave in the bleakest days of fall and winter.

About once a year, I succumb and buy an entire half bushel of peaches at the farmer’s market. I know for a fact it’s a half bushel, even though to me, it looks exactly like a plain old bushel, which was very confusing at first. A true “bushel” is a very, very large amount for someone with one, sometimes two mouths to feed, regardless of how much they adore peaches.

As soon as I get the (half) bushel home, it’s peaches, peaches peaches all the way. Out comes the flatbread to make grilled summer fruit flatbread, peach and prosciutto pizza, or one of my favorite breakfasts, this French toast filled with ricotta cheese and slices of you guessed it, peaches.

If I needed a peach fix and the fruit was a little unripe, I’d speed the process up by stashing a few of them in a brown paper bag with a ripe banana. The banana emits ethylene, a plant hormone released as a gas, which helps ripen the fruit quickly. It’s ideal because soft peaches aren’t fun to carry home, but unripe peaches aren’t so fun to eat…

Cinnamon is a nice addition because it makes the flatbread recipe taste like warm peach pie, just out of the oven. What’s not to love about peach pie for breakfast?

Stay peachy!

-Amy at Flatout