Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Gonna Can Me a Lot of Peaches

One of the more inane and yet strangely catchy songs by the band "The Presidents of the United States of America" is a song called Peaches.  I don't know why it still sticks in my head, but it does, and whenever I have peaches I can't help but hear that song.  Over and over again.  Peaches come from a can, they were put there by a man, in a factory downtown...

Oh, sorry, I got distracted there for a minute.  Near the stables where I ride there is a farm.  I've driven by it a few times but never stopped, and then today on a whim I stopped to see if they had "seconds" for canning.  They did!  A large box (21 pounds) for $10.  Mostly white peaches but there were a few rogue yellow ones in there.  I also bought a little bag of peaches for eating.  And was excited and happy to learn that the 6 year old discovered peaches recently and gobbled one up on the drive home!!!

Every time I want to can peaches I conveniently forget how messy they are.  It's soooooo worth it, canned peaches are awesome, so I put up with it, but it's a long process.  I can only boil 4 at a time to peel them.  I have learned that more is not better when it comes to boiling them - 1 minute is just enough, 2 minutes is BAD.  I'm not sure why it's bad, but it does strange things to the peaches and they fragment and shred when you try to peel them.  Don't do it.

I'm already a little more than halfway through the box and I have 3 quarts of peaches in light syrup and 2 pints of brandied peaches in the canner.  I might have another 3 quarts' worth left.  I wasn't keeping track.  But I will clearly have to do them tonight because I have no time tomorrow and these peaches will not last much longer!  They are seconds, after all.  I tried to use up the really squishy ones with the first batch to buy myself a little more time.

To make the brandied peaches, you hot pack the peach slices like the plain ones and then mix equal parts of brandy or cognac (I used Hennessey) with syrup and fill the jars, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace.  These will likely be very carefully marked to make sure they don't accidentally get mixed up with the plain ones.

5 comments:

  1. I stopped reading as soon as possible, but it was too late. I cannot get that stupid song out of my head. :(

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  2. Sorry, Meadowlark. We even played the song to try and get it over with, but that didn't work. I'm trying to think of some other ones to bump this one out of my head...I will refrain from naming them....

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  3. Build a little birdhouse in your soul! (Not to put too fine a point on it... say it's the only bee in your bonnet...)

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  4. That wasn't the one I was thinking of, but thanks, Lisa...I think! TMBG have more than their share of songs in this category. I was trying to avoid the Disney route and headed toward Chumbawumba. Not sure which is worse!

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  5. Next time I get a bushel of peaches, I'm gonna have to try making that slow cooker peach butter from the Food In Jars blog. (I also can peaches to TPUSA on Spotify, so you're not alone!)

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