Preserving Peaches

Peaches are on an unbelievable sale here so I have have been stocking up. I invited my canning tutor friend over Saturday to show me what to do. After having difficulty trying to peel half a case we decided they weren't quite ripe enough yet and so those peaches became jam. There was a little bit that didn't quite fit in, so we snacked upon it. It was quite tasty.

Then yesterday I tried to can the rest of the peaches by myself. I got them all done, but the Small Fries felt very neglected. Some of the jars I tried the No Added Sugar method, and others I did the regular way. I ended up with 18 half pints of jam, 52 half pints of peaches, and two more cases of peaches to jam, and preserve, and freeze (what can I say, they are on a very good sale). I do the half pint sizes because I have little children, and they are just the right size for pulling out for lunches and not having to worry about leftovers. I was just going by the instructions in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving. It took all morning and half the afternoon, but I feel accomplished.

The end result: four cases of 40 peaches each turned into 18 jars of peach jam, 10 jars of peach butter, 81 half-pints of sliced and diced peaches, three freezer bags mostly full of frozen peach slices to add to smoothies, and unknown numbers of peaches eaten just the way they were because they were so tasty. Add to that the peach freezer jam that was made the week before with the peaches left over from our camping trip, and I think we are set in the peach department for quite a few months.