Georgia On My Mind Peach Crisp

You'd think this was supposed to be a food blog, the way it's been nothing but desserts lately... but look: we have a peach tree, and it is spectacular right now.




That's not the whole tree. That's just a branch that's so laden with fruit that it leaned out to the side and had to be propped up in several places. See:




There's the whole tree. It goes on and on. And it's full of amazing-looking peaches like this one:




And they all seem to ripen at once, and right now if you jiggle the branch they just fall right off.




Soooo many peaches...



(My photographer new-father cousin strikes again.)

It must be some kind of venial sin to waste food, so that means it's morally incumbent upon me to make peach crisp. And here's the best recipe for peach crisp that I've ever found-- except that there's no reason to dilute peaches with apples, and the fruit juice is completely unnecessary; our peaches are so juicy on their own! So I suggest this modified version of it:

Peach filling:
7 medium peaches (or however many you have), skinned and cut in pieces
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Topping:
1/3 cup pecans, finely chopped
2/3 cup oats
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
7-8 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350°F and cut up the peaches. Spray a 7" x 11" or 8" x 8" pan with cooking spray. Mix all the peach filling ingredients together and spread out in the pan. Mix all the topping ingredients together and spread over the peach filling. Bake until juices start to bubble, 30-40 minutes. Serve at once unless you're serving to fools who'll burn their mouths. It's incredible right out of the oven and also great warmed up the next day in the microwave. Doesn't really travel well-- the topping wants to sink into the filling.

No need for pictures with such a simple recipe, so let's end the post here-- HAHAHA! PSYCH! Of course there are pictures.

So I cut the peaches:




Added the spices and such:




Mixed it all up and spread it in the pan:




Slapped on the topping:




And baked it. You can't tell from the picture, but this was right after I took it out of the oven and the juice was still bubbling. :)




Thirty minutes later it looked like this:




Yeah, it goes fast. I wasn't the only one scarfing it down, but I made the major contribution.

And you can see why:



This would be great with ice cream or whipped cream, but I inhaled it too fast for that. :)

Update: My dad polished off most of the rest last night, but kindly left me a bit for breakfast this morning. I estimate the total survival time of the peach crisp at twelve hours.