Domestic Goddess

Recently I have been teaching my roommate Jessica how to make homemade jams, as you know by my post on making prickly pear jelly. Well the grocery store next to our house was having an amazing sale on raspberries, so on saturday we made raspberry jam which you can see behind me. While at the store, we also discovered that peaches were on sale for 59 cents a pound. So yesterday we canned 22 pounds of peaches. What a day! It took seven hours, mostly due to having to wait for the water in my pressure canner to heat up so we could sterilize and process the jars. I also wish I had just a slightly bigger stove; we kept having to swap out pans depending on what we were doing.

We used a recipe in my canning book but it wasn't very clear on the best way to remove the peach skins. We tried putting the whole peaches in the boiling water and then the ice water only to realize that it didn't make the skins easier to come off; instead, it made the peaches very slimy and hard to hold while trying to slice them up. I'm surprised we didn't slice ourselves instead. We then figured out that if you slice them before you put them in the boiling water the skins come right off and we didn't have to risk any of our fingers.

We also learned that you really need to pack the peaches in the jars. We thought we had them so tight only to discover, when we pulled them out of processing, that there was half-an-inch to an inch of extra space at the bottom. Next time I will be more aggresive in my packing. It also helps to use the mason jars with regular openings instead of the extra wide. We used the wide ones for my peaches. It did make it easier to get the peaches in the jars but once you add the syrup they could float right to the top. At least the reglar mouth curves in a little to help stop the floating peaches and you can actually measure the headspace properly.
Since this is my first time canning fruit I decided to try a couple different things. I canned some of my peaches in medium syrup, some with cinnamon cooked in, and some canned in honey. I will let you know which I like best.

Next on the list to tackle: apples or pears.

p.s.-the apron I'm wearing is the one my sister helped me make