Canning frenzy

The trouble with canning, I've found, is once I start, it's hard to stop.

It began with peas. While cleaning out and inventorying our chest freezer, I came across two gallons of peas from the garden in our last place. At the time I harvested them, we were selling the house. It was a busy summer and I didn't have time to can anything, so I put them in the freezer ... and forgot about them.  Those were the first things to get canned.

Then, a couple days later, Don and I were driving through a nearby town when we saw one of those traveling fruit vendors. Instantly we pulled over and purchased two boxes of peaches (which, let the record show, had fewer quantity and higher prices than past purchases; but yowza they were delicious!). We had been trying to chase down this fruit vendor for several weeks, but didn't know his schedule. (Now we have his business card.) From this bounty, I canned up 15 quarts of peaches; the rest we ate fresh. Peaches are – hands down and by a wide margin – my all-time favorite fruit.

Lastly, of course, I canned the blueberries.

I'm also washing and selling some surplus canning jars that didn't sell at the yard sale. Most of these are half-pint jam and jelly jars, which I simply don't use.

Have I mentioned how much I love fall? Canning and autumn are forever entwined in my mind.

Hmm .... what can I can up next? Hopefully by this time next year, our garden will be up and running, and I'll have lots more ways to celebrate fall.

Sunshine in a jar

It's peach-canning season.

Someone from a friend's church makes a run to Yakima every year for peaches. At $15 for a 20-lb. box, it's hard to beat the prices. This year I ordered five boxes -- one box for fresh eating (I love LOVE LOVE peaches!), four boxes for canning.

Canning 80 lbs. of peaches is a serious, day-long affair. I've found it's easiest if I set up "stations" in the kitchen. This is my scalding station:

My cooling station:

My peeling station:

My peeled fruit station:

My jar station:

and my syrup station:

This allows me to get into a rhythm. Some peaches are scalding, others are cooling, while I peel yet another batch. When I have a full bowl, I stop and slice, and fill jars...

...then top them with syrup.

Before capping the jars, I wipe the rims to get any spilled syrup or peach pulp off. This also allows me to check for any nicks I may have missed.

When the jars are all filled, the stove is then free to start processing. First I scalded my Tattler lids.

Peaches are processed in a water-bath, so I got my two biggest pots (using racks on the bottom, of course). The bigger pot held seven quarts, the smaller one five, so I could process 12 quarts at a time.

Quarts are processed at a rolling boil for 30 minutes. I set two kitchen timers up to monitor both pots separately.

After removing a batch but before putting in another batch, I pre-warmed the jars in hot water so they wouldn't break when I immersed them in the water-bath.

Batch by batch, I got the jars processed until by the end of a long and exhausting day, 35 quarts were cooling on the counter.

By the next morning, I was in more of a position to admire my handiwork.

However I didn't want to put the peaches away into the pantry until I washed the jars. There's always a bit of overflow which causes stickiness.

Then I washed the rings, a boring but necessary task.

Canned peaches are like sunshine in a jar.

Canning peaches

If I've been rather quiet on the blog lately, it's because I've been up to my elbows in peaches.

A week or two ago, I called a friend who has a family member who makes an annual run to Yakima for peaches for their church. It's not unusual for these folks to bring back hundreds of twenty-pound boxes at the extraordinary price of $16/box. I asked if I could put in an order for four boxes (80 lbs.).

To my surprise, my friend called on Monday and said the peaches were in. That was quick!

Peaches are my flat-out, hands-down, out-of-the-ballpark favorite fruit by an order of magnitude even over strawberries. They are things of great and artistic beauty.

But even things of great and artistic beauty must be preserved before they go bad. Yesterday the peaches had ripened to their optimal sweetness, and it was time to buckle down and can them.

Older Daughter, of course, is at school in Ohio, and Younger Daughter was at a book convention, so it was up to me to get these babies in jars.

So I set up a sort of production line. The pot on the stove is for dipping peaches in near (but not quite) boiling water to slip the skins; the white bowl is for cooling the peaches once they've been dipped.

Cooling peaches. I worked in batches of ten at a time.

Peaches with the skins slipped off.

Making syrup. I use a two:one ratio of water:sugar.

Once a batch of fruit was peeled, I sliced and filled jars...

...then filled the jar with syrup and put it aside.

I got a fairly smooth rhythm going: peaches heating, cooling, peeling, slicing, filling jars, and topping with syrup.

I turned the last few batches into purée since there's nothing finer for flavoring ice cream or yogurt.

I ended with four and a half quarts of purée, which I froze.

Gradually the boxes emptied.

I left the fourth box half-full for fresh eating.

Besides the purée, I ended up with 29 quarts of sliced peaches.

I thought they looked lovely in the sunshine.

I water-bathed them for 25 minutes. I could only fit twelve jars between my two largest pots, so I did them in batches. During the third batch, one of the jars broke. It happens.

28 quarts and a bit over a gallon of purée -- not a bad haul for winter indulgence.

Canning peaches

It's that time of year again, the time when fresh foods are abundant and reasonably inexpensive. Through a friend's church, I was able to get boxes of peaches for $15 a box, so we bought three boxes. We fresh-ate a lot of the peaches. My hands-down all time favorite fruit is peaches, so it's no surprise that half the top box was empty by the time I got around to canning them.

I wasn't sure how many jars I'd need, so I started by washing twenty quart jars. The girls were gone for a day -- busy cleaning motel rooms for a neighbor who owns a motel -- and I sorely missed their help.

I found one jar with a nicked rim, so I pulled it aside. Chipped jars won't seal.

I labeled it and put it in the pantry for storing dry items.

First task was to boil water so I could dip the peaches and slip the skins. I found that processing ten peaches at a time worked well.

Cooling the hot peaches in cool water.

Peeling.

Slicing.

As I filled each jar, I added about a tablespoon of lemon juice to slow browning.

I got into a rhythm: peaches cooking, peaches cooling, peaches being peeled, filling jars, etc.

I ended up with twenty-two quarts. Not bad.

Scraps. I thought about making some fruit vinegar, but decided not to since I still have a lot of vinegar left. This bowl of scraps went into the compost pile.

Making syrup. I prefer a light syrup, which is a 2:1 ratio of water:sugar.

Topping the jars with syrup.

I pulled out the rings I needed...

...and scalded the Tattler lids and gaskets.

Peaches can be water-bath canned (30 minutes for quarts), and my two biggest pots held twelve quarts between them.

I started cleaning up the mess while the first batch processed. The floor was sticky, so out came the mop.

While the first batch was processing, I preheated the second batch of jars in a dishpan of hot water so there wouldn't be a temperature shock of putting cool jars in boiling water. Nonetheless, about five minutes after I put the second batch of jars in the pots, I heard a BANG! When I lifted the lid, peaches were floating.

Lost a jar. It happens.

By the time second batch of jars were out and cooling...

...it was well past 10 pm and I was staggeringly tired. All-day canning sessions are tough.

The next morning I made sure to wash the very sticky jars. It's normal for the jars to vent during processing and cooling, which left them very sticky on the outside. I gave each one a good scrub.

Cleaned and ready to store.

I also scrubbed my rings, particularly necessary after a sticky project like peaches.

I'll be doing a lot of canning this fall. Peaches? They're just the beginning.