I am sure it comes as no surprise that I have been doing a bit of canning lately (did the fact that I have been attending preserving demos give it away?). There were a few things I knew I would need to make no matter what – another batch of Spiced Plum Jam, since the three batches I made last year have either been eaten, or gifted to friends and family, and a few batches of jalepeno pepper jelly, because I like to keep a few jars of that on hand for any time I need to whip up a snack for a large crowd (pour one jar jalepeno pepper jelly over a block of cream cheese; set down a bowl of crackers, and then stand back and watch the crowds descend and devour every last bite). But we have lately been inundated with alarming quantities of cherry tomatoes from our garden, and the regular tomatoes are finally starting to look as if they might give us a fairly decent crop this year. And ever since the demo in June, I have been wanting to put up peaches.
I’ve done two stints of putting up peaches so far; the last and largest was this weekend. This morning at the farmers market I picked up a giant box of huge yellow peaches for only $15. We zipped off to Dixon for lunch with my parents and my older sister and her family, but the instant we got home, I immediately headed for the kitchen and proceeded to spend the rest of the day processing peaches.
I tried some peach jam first, since jam is nice and easy – two batches of this jam. The first batch I followed the original recipe and added the cinnamon, but for the second batch I decided to leave that out, since the combination of just peach and vanilla was delicious enough on its own.
Next on the list was some peach nectar, which is really nothing more than a whole mess of peeled, sliced peaches tossed into a pan with a little water and cooked until soft and mashable. I used my immersion blender to puree them, then I ran them through my food mill to remove any lingering chunks. I didn’t add any sweetener to my nectar because I’d rather do that when I use it.
By the time I was done with all that, I was pretty worn out, but there was still half a box of peaches left to deal with, so I just peeled and sliced and cold-packed all the rest.
From left to right, peach nectar, sliced peaches, vanilla peach jam, cinnamon peach jam
End result of all my peach preservation so far this summer: 16 half pints of jam, 1 1/2 pints of peach nectar, and 11 pints of sliced peaches. Not too bad for two long afternoons of work.
Brings back good (and sticky) memories of putting up peaches (and so many other things) with you and your sisters years ago. Gotta admit, your sliced peaches look better than what I remember. I’d put as many as I could possibly fit into the jar, and after the processing, there’d still be at least an inch and a half of space at the bottom with the peaches floating above. Couldn’t figure out if the peaches shrink a little in processing, or they were square dancing in there and just rearranged themselves more efficiently than I could, or what. But yours look nice. Good job, Jeffer! That’s up there on the top of my “when I retire and have a little more time” list – putting up fruits and vegetables again! And don’t those jars look nice in your pantry!!!!
They shrink when you add the hot liquid, and keep on shrinking when you put them in the water bath, near as I can tell. I smashed them into the jar as tightly as possible, but there’s still always lots of empty juice at the bottom. Ah well! I might try hot-packing them one of these days, to see if that helps.