Yes, it’s almost January. Yes, my post is about canning peaches…in the middle of winter! Even though I canned these peaches in summer I wanted to demonstrate how to preserve peaches (which means placing slices/cubes/whole peaches in the jar to use in pies later) and how to can peach jam. It is the best feeling to go down into my basement and grab a couple jars of sliced peaches to make fresh peach cobbler, in January!
Fresh Palisade peaches - doesn't get any better than this!
I always get a ton of peaches every summer. The first year I got them I actually froze the peaches whole. This worked great except they were a little mushy when they defrosted. So, onto “plan B”. Since I taught myself how to can I decided to preserve the peaches instead. This took a little bit more work, but in the end it is worth it. I sliced some peaches and preserved them and used the rest of the peaches to make peach jam. I think I was basically “peached out” at the end of everything.
If you’ve never canned before I would highly recommend doing some research first. My first post on canning is a tutorial and provides some very useful links. Raspberry/blackberry jam.
Cutting the "x" on the peach
Almost everyone has a trick to peeling peaches, either passed down from their mother or grandmother. A little trick of mine to peeling peaches is to cut an “x” on the bottom and boil them for about 30 seconds to a minute then place in a bowl/sink/pan of very cold water.
Easy breezy!
This makes the skin peel right off! Brilliant!
Another trick I use is to use a grapefruit spoon to dig out the pit.
Bam!
I can also scoop out some of the gunk after I get the pit out as well.
The final trick, and this is key, is using a good knife. I don’t mean to go out and buy an expensive knife. But buy a decent quality knife and invest in a honing device. A honing device will help keep the straight edge on your knife, which will prolong the life of your knife before having to sharpen it.
Lookin' good!
Something else on sharp knives. They’re sharp!! So go slow because peaches are slippery. There is no competition or rush. I sliced all the peaches that I had…which was about this much:
Holy peaches....
Half of them were preserved as slices, unfortunately I must have been pretty busy because there are no pictures of that. However, there is a simple recipe in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving. I found mine at my local grocery store for about $5.
The other half went into making jam. I made regular peach jam and spiced peach jam. My favorite has got to be spiced peach jam. Though either would work great as a cake filling.
Well that's a pan full of peaches
Added sugar and spice and everything nice. To make spiced peach jam I just combined the spices called for in the recipe in a bit of cheesecloth and tied it. Then I placed the cheesecloth into the jam to soak as the jam cooked. The spiced jam recipe is also located in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving.
The moose are always watching...creepers.
Unfortunately, as I am still learning, this batch of jam did not work out at first. It was more like peach syrup. I had just 2 peaches left and decided to add them, little did I know that I should have added more sugar and pectin to compensate. Lesson learned (again), DON’T alter the recipe!!
It’s alright though. Remaking jam is incredibly easy, though more of an annoyance after spending a whole day canning, waiting 2 weeks, and finding out your jam still hasn’t set.
Filling the jars
Ah!
It is recommend to wait two weeks before remaking jam just to let the pectin do its job. Sometimes it can take a while before the jam sets. I remade this jam successfully and it tasted great! I still have a few jars waiting for me in the basement. However, there is no pectin when preserving peaches. I used my sliced peaches just 2 months after canning for a delicious peach and blueberry tart!
The blueberries exploded!
I hope you enjoyed this edition of yummy food from Jen’s Blog! If you have any questions regarding canning, or anything else I have posted about please feel free to ask me by leaving me a comment below. If I don’t know the answer, I will find it for you!
Tags: canning, peach jam, peaches, preserving, recipe, sliced peaches, spiced peach jam
I cannot wait to try out canning this summer. Did I tell you we made all that pear butter and I didn’t realize you had to can it on the spot (because I’d never done it before and am a bit of moron when it comes this) so I said, “Oh, we’ll just do it next week.” So much wasted. Next year I’ll know!
And thank you so much for all your comments and blog visits this year. I have truly enjoyed absoulety everything you’ve shared on your blog.
Keep it up! I can’t wait to see what you come up with in the new year. Happy New Year Jen and husband!
Yikes, you never mentioned the pear butter! What a shame! Oh well, this year will be a great year for canning, I can feel it! I also want to thank you for all your visits and comments. I absolutely loved the summary that wordpress did this year, and guess who was my number 1 commenter? YOU! haha Happy New Year and I look forward to many more blog posts!
I’m your number one commenter! LOL! I feel like a stalker. Oh no! ha! ha! Your blog just has such good stuff, and I’m a bit of a stalker, I mean talker. LOL!
Yeah, they summed it up well with the fireworks. I liked that too.
And I promise to proofread before I push send this year. I’m always leaving out “a” and “to” and you know, all the things that string the sentence together! Or adding “s” to talker! I went to bed too late!
Have a good one today celebrating the brand new day of the brand new year!