No Pectin Peach Jam

  Not much to say about this item except that it FREAKIN ROCKS and we are going to make more next year. This is good stuff. This may be my favorite thing out of all the items we canned this year. This was simple to do although, like the plum jam, it took some patience because we didn't add any pectin. I read through several recipes until I found a couple of pectin free versions. This is what we used:

Pectin Free Peach Jam (Makes 3 pints)

6 c peaches (pealed, pitted and finely chopped)

1/4 c lemon juice

3 c sugar

  We found using our food processor worked best for chopping the peaches. Combine peaches, lemon juice and sugar in an appropriate sized pot. Mix thoroughly. Bring to a boil and immediately lower the heat to medium low. We left it at this stage for 2 hours making sure to stir often. Skim any foam and discard. This was the part that took patience. You can certainly speed things up by using pectin. You could also raise the heat a little and stir almost constantly for 45 minutes to an hour. The Ball Blue Book explains the consistency to look for when a jam is ready to put in jars. This link explains it as well. We used the sheet method. Ladle into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch head space, seal and process in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes. Enjoy! :-)

TTFN

B

Canned Peaches

  A friend called on a Sunday afternoon around 2pm and said he had peaches for me and that they were a little on the ripe side and would need processed as soon as possible. Well, I guess it was time to learn how to can peaches! Fortunately when I picked up the pressure canner I got more jars and the Ball Blue Book which comes highly recommended by the way. I got mine for $2.99 at my local country store. It is well worth the info inside. Especially if you are a beginner like myself. I got the peaches home at 6pm and we had 7 quarts cooling on the counter by 9pm. Not too bad for the first time. 7 quarts may not seem like much, but each jar holds between 25 and 30 peach halves.

  We blanched the peaches in batches of about 10 to slip the skins off, sliced them in half, scooped the pit and reddish flesh out and submersed them in a lemon water ice bath until canning time. The lemon did a good job of keeping the peaches nice and bright. There weren't instructions for pressure canning the peaches so I used the time for water bath processing instead. The blue book recommends a 30 minute time for the boiling water bath processing method and I later read that 10 minutes is sufficient in pressure canner, so I will remember that for next time. I tasted them for the first time last night and I thought they were pretty good. I highly recommend canning whatever you'll eat. It is satisfying and you have control over what goes in the jar. :-)

TTFN

B