Just Peachy!

I love love love this time of year!  I am nothing more than happy to throw on my jeans and a sweat shirt or long sleeve and bake!  I can enjoy my kids at the park without melting.  It’s not unbearably cold or snowy which I hate driving in.  It’s perfect! 

My mother in law has a friend who get’s peaches from the western slope here in Colorado this time of year for dirt cheap.  So this year she brought me an 18lb box of big fat deliciously juicy peaches for only $30!  I had about one week to figure out what to do with them.

Since canning them was the obvious choice we did do some of that.  But today I’m going to show you how we made peach jam!  And how little miss K had to learn that a watched pot never boils lol.

First we have to get the skins off.  Here we have a pot of boiling water right next to a pot of ice water.  We will throw our peaches in the boiling water for just under a minute and then strait into the ice cold water.  This is blanching.

Once they come out of the ice water the skins kind of just slide right off!  Now if your skins aren’t peeling off with ease this means your peaches aren’t ripe enough. 

Here is what you will have once finished with the peeling.

Wait!  Don’t throw those skins out.  Save them in a bag in the fridge.  I’ll show you how to make peach honey!

This is where we are going cut everything up.  First off you want to get the seeds out.  At this time I cut the peaches for canning and for the jam all together.

Now I have a really neat bread maker my grandmother gave me that has a jam setting.  So this part was fairly easy for us.  Just mash about 8 cups of peaches, toss in 5 cups of sugar and the pectin.  About an hour later we had this!

It was thick and goopy just like jam.  It will solidify further upon cooling.  The only thing I might do differently next time is blend the peaches to make a finer jam, this turned out extra junky.  Still yummy though.

Now to can it.  Wash your jars.  You will need a few things.  A pressure/water canner/  These tong looking things to put your jars in and out of the canner with.  This wide mouth funnel for getting the jam into the small jars without a huge mess.

Now you need to put the seals in hot water.  You will use this cool magnet wand to get them out.  Place the hot seal on your jar and place screw on the ring.  Tighten but don’t over tighten!

Place all your jars in the canner for the time recommended in your manual.  Mine was about 10 minutes.  Then let the jars cool before tightening the lids any further.  This may take over night.  Here you see our peaches back there waiting to go in the canner as well.  This is what you get when you’re finished and your neighbors will love you!

 

~Sommer