Just peachy

As you can see, I was busy this weekend. As I mentioned on Sunday, I didn't quite realize how many peaches had been delivered until I actually started working with them. Sure, the bushel of peaches looked pretty big, but nothing I couldn't handle, right? Oh, boy, was I in for it! The initial plan was to make one batch of peach jam and then peel the rest for freezing. One look at the freezer changed my mind and I quickly decided to can the peaches instead. But first, how about some peach jam! 

My dad seemed to be drooling over the idea of homemade peach jam and to be honest, it's my favorite, too! I had plenty of sugar, pectin, and (obviously) peaches to get through a batch. I started washing, peeling and chopping. I saved all the peels to nibble on this week (I just couldn't bear to put them in the compost pile. all the nutrients are in the peels, right?). Great. Four cups of peaches and 5 cups of sugar (it always gets me just how much sugar is in jam - YOW!). Before putting it on the stove, the recipe recommends adding a little lemon juice. As I understand it, this is to keep it from discoloring on the shelf. Rather than the lemon juice, however, I had read online that you can use either fruit fresh, or cheaper yet, crush vitamin C tablets into a powder and sprinkle over top the fruit. So mortar and pestle in hand, I began crushing some vitamin C. It only took a few of the pills (which is WAY cheaper than Fruit Fresh - for the price of one jar of Fruit Fresh, I bought 200 tablets of vitamin C). I sprinkled it over top the peaches, stirred it up and was ready to go. 

Then, just like with the blackberries, dewberries, and strawberries, I heated the fruit with the pectin to a boil, added sugar and again brought it to a boil, then loaded up the jars, adding the covers and rims.  The only difference in my process was that rather than doing the inversion method (where you turn the jars over for 5 minutes, then right side up to seal), I used the boiling water bath (boil them in large pot for 5-10 minutes). The reason being that since I was on my own this time, I wasn't sure I could move fast enough to keep the jars from contamination. Having a partner (or two or three) really is more fun and makes the process easier.

Anyway, as I was looking at the pretty jars of peach jam, I realized there just weren't very many of them. Daddy would surely come back for more (I tasted some and it rocks!). Perhaps I should do another batch. I mean, I had hardly made a dent in the box of peaches (I was at this point realizing just how many there were). So I hopped on my bike and peddled my booty to the grocery for more pectin, sugar, and jars. Let's do this! Two additional batches later, we had some serious peach jam. Oh yeah!

Surprisingly enough, although I had made a dent in the peaches, I still had well over half the box left. I was already exhausted, but I had all this hot water on the stove that I didn't want to waste, so I plowed right on into some canned peaches. Following the directions on the Pick Your Own website (this is a GREAT resource, by the way), I washed, peeled, and cut the peaches. Now, these aren't freestone peaches. The seed just wouldn't come out. So having to cut around it means I don't have the nice little slices you see in the cans of peaches at the store. But I'm eating these. Who cares what they look like!

So I prepared the syrup (aka sugar water) using the recipe for light syrup, let the peaches sit in the boiling syrup for a few minutes and then filled the jars. I was able to fill 4 large jars (that's them in the photo, on the right) with peaches before I was ready to boil the jars in the canner. Unlike the jam which only took 5-10 minutes in the boiling water bath, the canned peaches were to be boiled for 20 minutes. It took forever for all that water to boil, even though I had kept the pot covered  between uses to conserve heat), but I finally got it there and in 20 minutes, I had four beautiful jars of peaches. 

I feel kinda guilty having used so much energy to boil all that water, on and off, for the better part of the afternoon, but I tried to conserve as much energy as possible and even used the hot water to boil some of those carrots I picked up at the farmers market. Once the water cooled, Dave suggested we use it to moisten our compost pile. Great idea!  

Needless to say, by the time I finished, I was completely exhausted. My legs had given out and I was ready to collapse. But I have to admit, I'm amazed at all that I was able to do in just four hours: 11 canning jars of jam (various sizes), 2 plastic containers (from the extra little bit of jam at the bottom of each batch that wouldn't quite fill another jar), 4 jars of peaches, and some cooked carrots for dinners later this week. Oh, and I still haven't used all the peaches. I might try freezing some later this week.

All in all, things are looking just peachy. Hey, Dad. Want some jam?