ON TO THE PEACHES

In addition to the plums I got at the Farmers Market, I got a small quantity of peaches.

I didn’t need any peaches for canning this year as I still have some on the shelf from last year’s processing. I’ve been wanting to learn how to can pie filling though and there’s not much that’s better than peach pie. So, that was Saturday’s adventure.

First, I had to get these peeled, pitted, and cut up. My fingers had been swollen and painful for several days and I knew I would not be able to peel them using my usual method. This opened the way for two things.

First, I’ve been seeing a video on social media about using needle nose pliers to pull the pit from a peach and wanted to see for myself if it lived up to the hype. Second, now that the Sidewindr™ filtration system I had installed in May has improved water quality so much, I don’t have to wash things in bottled water, so I decided to use the dip method for peeling the peaches.

PITTING

The videos looked plausible, theoretically, so I bought a new pair of needle nose pliers and washed them. See Oscar demonstrating here:

Oh, my goodness – IT WORKS! This is the slickest trick I’ve seen on the Internet since, well, since the last slick trick. These needle nose pliers will not be going into the toolbox, they are going with my canning supplies!

SKINNING

If you’ve known me for any length of time you will have heard me express my loathing about peeling peaches using the dip method. This is where you put the peaches in boiling water for a minute or two and then into cold water, after which the skin pretty much slips off. This is also used for peeling tomatoes for canning.

I despised doing it this way because 1) you use a lot of extra pans and burners on the stove when you are already short of space because of your canner, etc. and, 2) after peeling them this way, the peach is too slippery to remove the pit without absolutely squishing the darn thing.

Since removing the pit was no longer a problem and the water was no longer a problem and I now use an electric canner instead of a stove top canner I decided to try again.

Using my pasta cooker to dip the peaches in hot water meant I could then just transfer the insert to the pan of cold water to cool them down. It made it a nice, straight-forward process.

The peaches were still pretty messy to work with but, since I didn’t have to deal with the pit after these slimy things came out of the cold-water bath, this was do-able.

PIE FILLING

I used the Peach Pie Filling recipe from my USDA The Complete Guide to Home Canning book (2020 printing). The recipe only gives you the measurements for 1 quart or 7 quarts. So, I had to math. Sigh. This often does not work well for me. Nevertheless, 1 quart is 2 pints, and my canner holds 4 wide-mouth pints, so I just had to double the recipe for one quart.

For four pints I needed

• 7 cups peaches
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons Clear Jel
• 1-1/2 cups cold water
• 1/2 cup lemon juice

Well, the next bit required Oscar’s help stirring while I was preparing jars and lids and running back and forth reviewing and re-reviewing the recipe, so there are no pictures until, after 30 minutes in the water bath canner:

At this point I’ was feeling a bit frazzled, and more than a little tired, so I admit I wavered for a moment and thought, “Just put the rest of the peaches in the dehydrator. It’ll be quick and you’ll be done.” I held steady though and used the remainder of the peaches to make a double batch of Peach Jam.

PEACH JAM

I am a whiz at making freezer jam, but I want this batch to be shelf-stable so cooked jam it is. I rarely make cooked jam. This is because 75% of the times I’ve tried it, I missed an instruction or added ingredients in the wrong order and ruined the batch.

This time, I managed to follow the directions in the Sure Jell box correctly. The jam got made but not without a bit of angst and, I’m sorry to say, some sweary words when I couldn’t find my immersion blender, then found it but it didn’t work as expected so I had to run the jam through my blender. Sigh. Eventually though:

A lot more 1/2-pint jars fit in the electric canner than you’d think. I had too many jars to process in one go so I had to do a second processing. There were not enough jars in the second batch though, so the canner was filled mostly with jars of water to keep the few jars of jam stable.

Then it was time to make dinner.

The ending was nice though – Oscar got to do the dishes!