Post Peaches

It's been a while since I posted.  So here's what happened the rest of the month.

More peaches.... bought another half bushel of peaches and made jam.... lots of jam... trying to perfect the recipe... which i think i did.... 4 cups of mashed peaches to 1 cup of honey.  Don't know why I don't have a picture, but I don't.  You can taste the honey, unlike using 1/2 cup.  It is a keeper.

Needed to clean out the freezer to be able to put more stuff in the freezer.  It was packed.  Strawberries, Blueberries, Black Raspberries, Sour Cherries, Rhubarb, and Chicken.  No, chicken is not a fruit.  Ended up making more jam

12 jars of strawberry jam back left with labels, 8 small jars of strawberry rhubarb, and front center is 9 small jars of black raspberry jelly.  The strawberry and raspberry jelly were using the 4 cups fruit/juice and 1 cup sugar.  It came out fantastic.  While I was cooking down the raspberries to get ready to strain it, the whole house smelled wonderful.  LG came up on the porch and could smell it from there.  The jelly tastes like nectar... totally delicious.  The strawberry rhubarb used 4 cups strawberry rhubarb 1:1 mixture and 1.5 cups of sugar.  Tart and excellent.

Ended up cleaning out the garden last week.  Pulled the beans and the brussel sprouts.  The sprouts never really developed.  The biggest ones were a little bigger than my thumb nail. 

The beans on the other hand rocked.  Several times a week when walking past i would pic a handful and munch.  I still had a bunch to freeze... now that i had a little room.  Unfortunately, the purple ones lose their pigment when blanched.  But, they look beautiful in a fresh salad.

Another project completed these last 2 weeks of August was the bottling of the strawberry wine.  It was absulutely clear and just dang purty in color.  Ended up with 18 bottles that will sit and age for a year, at least.  Came out dry and strong.  16% ABV.

The morning sun comes thru the window over the sink and hits the counter.  I put some bottles in the sun and this is the color on the counter top.  I just think it's cool.

Speaking of wine... Black Raspberry is in the primary fermenter.  Wine or Jelly, Wine or Jelly.... wine won out.  Started this on 8/29 and pitched the yeast yesterday.  SG was 1.084 which should end up approx 14% ABV and sweet.  Only making a gallon, but have access to 40lbs of frozen fruit if I wanna make a 5 gallon batch... which I probably will.  The fruit is in the white mash bag to keep all the setiment together.  I didn't use the bag when I made the strawberry, and wasted alot in the sediment.  Live and learn.

Tomatoes are the next topic.  Picked a half bushel and canned.  Peeled a bunch (scalding water trick) and canned them with clove of garlic, oregano, basil, and black pepper.  And did two types of sauce.  One had green pepper, onion, garlic, basil, oregano, and salt and pepper.  To the other, added an eggplant and red lentils.  That was LG's idea.  That's how she makes sauce.  The eggplant and lentils cook down and disappear in the sauce.  Ends up a very rich, thick sauce.... love it.  If you look close, you can see the garlic cloves in the quart jars.

Replanting the garden with fall crops.  Lettuce, spinach, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and an experiment with sugar snap peas.  I sprouted the peas to give them a head start.  Literally 2 days after putting them in the ground, they were starting to break the surface.  I was amazed.  Next year, presprouting all the beans... may even try the squashes too.

And finally, finishing up with some misc pics... , itty bitty tomatoes, lemon cukes, and sunflowers in the horseshoe pits (sorry stevo).

 

 

Peaches.... and the byproducts

I've been wanting to do some canning this year... something, anything.  Made some strawberry/rhubarb jam earlier.  It turned out great, but too much sweet, not enough rhubarb.  The recipe called for 8.5 cups of fruit (4.25 cups each), and 10 cups of sugar.  No way.  I cut it down to 8 cups, and it was still too sweet. 

This lead me to a search for low sugar recipes, and eventually lead me to Pomona's Universal Pectin, which reacts with calcium powder (included in the package) to cause the set, instead of sugar. Click the link.

I made my next batch of jam using Pomona's Pectin.  Blueberry jam using honey as the sweetener.  Blueberry nectar.  Delicious but it didn't set well, more like a syrup.  But it set loose after a few days, and set hard in the fridge. Looking back, I didn't let it cook down enough and hadn't learned the "Sheeting Test" or 220 degrees temp. Gonna make each of these again in the near future.

Anyway, this post is about Peaches.  

 

I did a bunch of stuff yesterday, and had all these peels and pits left over.  LG heard about Peach Pit and Peel jelly and went home to find a recipe, and came back unsuccessful.  She said, "You have the internet, look it up." which was a brilliant idea.  duh.

Pits Peels in a Pot

Strained and ready to go

Found one and adapted it.  This recipe is based off how much juice you get out of your pits and peels.  It produces a light, elegant peach flavor jelly.

Like I said, it uses Pomona’s Universal Pectin that uses calcium water to “set up”, and not sugar, so you are able to use Tablespoons of sugar, not Cups of sugar.  Taste the fruit, not the sugar (I just made that up... gonna sell it to Pomona's).

 

PEACH PIT PEEL JELLY

Save pits and peels and barely cover them with water in a large pot.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.  Let stand overnight.  Strain thru a wet cheesecloth. DO NOT SQUEEZE.  Squeezing produces cloudy juice and jelly... like mine.  :-(

Per cup of juice, you will need the following (able to double, triple, quadruple, etc)

1T Lemon Juice

1T Calcium Water

3T Sugar

1T Pomona’s Universal Pectin

Add Pit Peel Juice, Lemon Juice, and Calcium Water and bring to a boil.  Mix the Pomona’s Universal Pectin with the sugar so the pectin will not clump.  Add Pectin/Sugar mix to the boiling liquid and stir vigorously for 1-2 minutes while cooking to dissolve Pectin.  Keep boiling until it reached the “sheeting off” jelly test (around 220 degrees).  Skim off foam.  Pour into hot jelly jars and seal.  Process the jars in a boiling hot water bath for 10 minutes.  (Add 1 minute for every 1,000 feet above sea level)

(L to R)  Pit Peel Jelly, Peach Jam sweetened with honey, Spirited Peaches w/SoCo, and Honey Spiced Peaches with cinnamon stick, nutmeg, and cloves.

I started with 6 cups of juice, and ended up with 4.5 cups of jelly.  I boiled it down a bit until it reached “sheeting off”.  I’ve found with Pomona’s Pectin, that you need to get excess water out of the mix for it to set, which only concentrates the flavor.  Win Win.

The recipe I adapted the above from uses 1 package of powdered pectin and 3 cups of sugar for every 3 cups of pit peel juice.  That equates to 16T of sugar for every cup of juice, instead of 3T. 

This is the tally of yesterday morning... 5.5 jelly jars PitPeel Jelly, 9.75 jelly jars of Peach Jam, 8 pints of Honey Spiced Peaches, and 10 jelly jars Spirited Peaches.

Still have a small bowl of fruit left, out of half a bushel.

Edit: No fruit left, just made 4 jars of spirited peaches with DiSoronno,  :-)