Canning Peaches

Thanks to my children the peaches are canned. We had purchased three cases of peaches with the intent to can them.

Somehow a plastic bag got into the bottom case and rotted half of one case. When I asked my family everyone was surprised and I guess the ghost of "Not Me" put it there. There were at least a half of another case that were eaten.

Ben took over the preparing of the peaches. He had a system for blanching, cooling, peeling, pitting and cutting the peaches. We found the camera in with the xbox games and I took pictures of Ben with his system. While I was taking the pictures Ben commented, "I could use some help here." He got through a case and half before calling it quits. Luckily Jenna came in about that time ready to help.

So it took most of the afternoon and evening but we got 21 quarts of peaches PACKED and canned. One of the quarts broke in the boiling water or it would have been 22. I did use a lighter sugar base this time I don't think the family will like this batch as much as the last.
It would not have taken as long if I had started the process of canning while still cutting up more peaches. I did each step seperate not sure if there would have been enough room on the stove for all three large pots at one time. I also would have probably made more mistakes that way. One of my mistakes was not adding lemon to the peaches as cutting to keep from browning. Also had to dump the boiling water after the jar broke and heat fresh water. I could also only fit 5 jars at a time into the canner next time I hope to have another canner and be able to process 10 at time. I doubt that we will can smaller than quart size unless it is jam or jelly.

I will have to post pictures later just wanted to get this down before it was forgotten. Here is the link I used to can the peaches http://www.pickyourown.org//peachescanning.htm .
I also found a recipe I tried for breakfast here http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/?s it was posted June 8th. You take a washed peach cut in half and pitted. Sprinkle brown sugar over both halves and broil. Serve with yogurt or sour cream. I ate mine with sour cream. It was so good! Luckily I saved a few peaches from the canning frenzy.

That is all I remember from our day of canning peaches. If you have any good peach recipes I would love to give them a try. I will buy peaches if they still have them at the farmers market but I don't believe it will be three cases again. Have a great day.