Peaches, Peaches, and MORE Peaches

I canned my first batch of peaches by my lonesome a couple days ago. Lemon Albertas from Brigham City's "Peach Days", to be exact.

It was intense.

Especially because the moment I sat down at the table with my perry knife in hand, surrounded by bowls to catch my assortment of peaches, pits, and peelings; Hannah turned into Haggatha.

{Quick tangent: The hubs and I swear our kid has multiple personalities. So, alas, when she crosses over from the sweet, smiling, laughing angel to a demon, we switch her name from Hannah to Haggatha.}

The entire experience was serenaded by a whining kid, minus the last five minutes when she finally decided she was pooped and fell asleep. The experience certainly helped me learn to focus under pressure! I also realized that I didn't really know what I was doing, but not until after I was up to my armpits in peach peelings and the poor little fellas were threatening to turn brown.

Some quick words of advice from a novice peach canner: Don't wait to boil the water for your pressure canner until you're ready to put your peaches in. Have it ready, my friends. Also, you're going to need nothing short of a vat for your sugar water. A tiny pot you use to make tomato soup will not suffice. I liked having a huge bowl of cold water and lemon juice handy to submerge some of the peaches that didn't have a bottle handy, but I don't know that I'll use it again. A quick word about that: Don't submerge your peaches in the water after they're sliced. Just put the whole thing in {unpitted or pitted, either way}. Otherwise, you'll be there fishing for peach slices for a small eternity.

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Next time I'll think to have all the jars out and ready and slice the peaches directly into the jars. I'll have my sugar water already heated on the stove so I can immediately fill up said jars. And, naturally, I'll have my water simmering/boiling so I don't have to sit there for forty years waiting for the conditions to be right.

Just like my family does. I'm sure they're laughing at me right now.

I would be. :)

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I still had 11 peaches left over after canning 12 quarts so I thought to myself "I've never made peach jam. That would be yummy. Sold."  The next day, I set off to the store to get some more sugar and pectin. After chopping and pitting and peeling some more, I had 7 half-pints of yummy jam. And, uh, I may or may not have practically licked the bowl clean. Nothing like some sugar with peach flavoring to get the day started right! ;)

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I only used 3 1/2 peaches for the jam and I didn't have enough jars to make another batch. So, thanks to Google, I found THIS recipe for peach bread.

I only ended up baking it for about 50 minutes instead of the full hour because I used dark non-stick pans and the crust was threatening to burn. After eating 3/4 of a loaf {I had a little help, don't worry} I have come to the conclusion that the middle is still a tiny bit under-cooked. It's still super yummy, though, so I'm not complaining. Next time I'll either bake it in glass or cover the loaves with aluminum foil to prevent over browning. Or lower the rack. Or something. I'll just fake it until I make it.

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. . . . .

So if you have some peaches, now you have some idears of what to do with 'em! Good luck, my friends! You can do it! Or, if all else fails, fake it like me and call it good.

Now, I do declare that Haggatha is beginning to rear her ugly head and so I must go appease her with more sweet potato puffs. Works every time. :)