Wee Bee Jammin' with Peaches

Hello, Peaches!

We bought a few bushels of Georgia peaches at a truck sale, and, after eating our fill of those fresh treats, we still had a dozen or so left over, and nobody wanted to let them go to waste. Some went into the freezer, some into the dehydrator, and the rest became jelly-jammy preserves.

And I ordered a batch of labels to go with them (and whatever other preserving projects I have coming up in the next season).
 

my new label

Also, I managed to make the jelly-jammy-preserves with no sugar or artificial sweeteners added. So, decadence comes with a low degree of guilt, and only three ingredients: fresh peaches, frozen apple juice concentrate, and pectin for sugar-free recipes (I used Sure-Jell in the pink box).

That kind of victory is worth sharing.

If you want to try this at your house, you're going to want to get all your stuff together in advance, because, once you start cooking, you won't have the time.

You'll need:

1 3-quart (or larger) nonreactive (non-aluminum) saucepan
1 smaller saucepan
1 wooden spoon or heat-resistant silicone stirring spatula
5 half-pint mason jars with lids and rings
1 pair of tongs
1 ladle
1 canning funnel
1 small bowl
1 regular metal spoon (any metal table spoon or soup spoon will do)
clean dampened cloth or paper towel
1 canning kettle (with rack), filled with enough warm (not hot!) water to cover your jars with an inch over their tops

You will also need to make certain you have a cleared work space immediately next to your stove top. I usually put all my gear in a paper-towel-lined jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with sides), to minimize the mess I'll have to clean up afterward.

And you really do want to do a hot bath or pressure bath with these, even more than with regular, sugary jams, just to be on the safe side. If any jars aren't completely sealed by the end of the process, you'll want to immediately refrigerate them, & eat the jam up within a few weeks. Properly bath-sealed, they can last on the shelf for up to a year.

 Simple Peach Jam/Preserves

Ingredients:

3 cups fresh peaches, peeled and cut into small pieces (or coarsely mashed)
1 can (12 oz.) frozen apple juice concentrate, thawed
1 package sugar-free pectin

Directions:

Clean and sterilize 5 half-pint jars (if you have a dishwasher, run the sterilizing cycle shortly before you're ready to start cooking, and allow the jars to remain hot in it until you're ready to use them. If your kitchen is not equipped with this appliance, cover your washed and rinsed jars with water in a pot on the stove, bring to a boil, and then leave at low simmer until you're ready to use them).

In small saucepan (2 –3 cups), cover jar lids with water, bring to a low simmer (do not boil!).

In a 3-quart (or larger) saucepan, stir together peach pieces and apple juice concentrate. Sprinkle pectin on top, allow it to begin absorbing moisture, then stir in completely.

Turn heat on to medium-high, and stir constantly until the mixture comes to a full rolling boil (it should continue to boil even while you stir it).

Allow to boil for precisely one minute. (During this time, I fish the jars out of their hot space, and set them beside the stove).

Remove from heat. With regular metal spoon, skim any foam off the top, and set that aside in small bowl.*

Using the funnel, ladle jam into the jars, leaving at least 1/2 inch head space in the jars. Wipe rims of jars with damp cloth or dampened paper towel, to remove any residue.

Using tongs, remove lids, one at a time, from hot water, and fit onto jars. Secure the lids with their rings, finger-tight (you're not trying to make it difficult for the next guy to twist the ring off. Just bring it to the point where it shows real resistance).

Place jars in canning bath. On high heat, bring to full boil, continue to boil steadily for 10 minutes.

Remove jars, allow them to cool on a rack or towel.

*The foam that you skimmed off the top makes a great treat for kids. I have many a fond memory of being handed a frothy jam sample smeared on a saltine cracker.

Note: the fruit usually rises to the top, during the process. Once the jam is cooled to room temperature, you may wish to give each jar a gentle tumble to distribute the fruit evenly amid the jelly (pretend they're fragile snow globes – don't shake & get 'em bubbly, but just give them a little rotation of the wrist until they're mixed to your liking). In the case of my last batch, I had to do this twice (once after the photo session) before the jelly was set sufficiently to hold those bits in place.

Also, the Sure-Jell instructions suggest adding Splenda, for people who prefer their peach jam to have more sweetener in it. IMHO, the concentrated apple juice is enough. If you're the kind of person who adds sugar (or its lab-built substitutes – or for that matter, even honey) to perfectly good, sweet, ripe Georgia peaches, I don't think I want to know you. 

Klippy's Pappy Picked a Peck of Pickling Peppers: a learning process (no recipe)

Pop has a modest garden in the back yard, in which, this year, he planted about ten pepper plants, most of which turned out to be hotter varieties. And, as is often the case, he wasn't sure what to do with the bumper crop. Now, you might not think that, by the picture above, we had jalapeños, since most people think of the hot little green things, but Pop likes to wait until things are VERY ripe before he picks them, and I don't get in his way. 

When these little peppers turned red, they did the same thing sweet peppers do when they go from green to red: they sweetened up. The interesting thing, though, was that they lost precisely none of their heat. The "green-ness" of the flavor was abated, but the crisp, fresh heat was present, as ever, and the extra sugar in the fruit elevated and helped retain the heat on tongue (and cheek, and eyes, and wherever else one is affected by hot peppers).

Because they were so pretty, I couldn't see fit to dehydrating them, and since they were still sweet, my choice for the first batch of jalapeños was to amplify the sugar still more by putting them into a nice sweet pickle batch, so that people might use them on sammiches ;) or in spreads, or for just showing off how tough their tongues and intestines might be. 

And, since this was an experimental batch, I cheated a little: I used a seasoning mix, following its instructions with slight variation. I added some lime juice and cilantro – both fresh – to the peppers as I chopped them, used rice vinegar instead of either regular or cider vinegar in the brine, and maltitol for sweetening, all so I could use these for myself as well as for gifts. If you use artificial sweeteners, though, you will need to "bump up" the amount of vinegar you use, because you will have less bulk for your brine, and it will have a shorter shelf life, as non-sugar sweeteners usually are not stable and may begin to turn bitter within about 6-10 months.  

From a peck – literally – of peppers, I managed to get 6 pints and 7 half-pints of pickled peppers. 

The question Pop asked me about them was one I've heard from others, as well (actually, sort of a complaint): why is there always so much liquid at the bottom of the jar when you finish? It's not like that in the pickles you buy from the store, after all. So I looked things up, and – surprise, surprise! – the factory doesn't always pickle in the jars. The process is started in vats, and the liquid is drained as the pickles are finally put into jars. When we, at home, pickle, we need the extra brine to "top off" the contents, making sure the veggies are totally covered before we put them into the hot bath, so that every last bit of food gets the flavor of the brine, and so there is less likelihood of bacterial growth in the jar.   

One can do with a little less brine, if one is pressure canning, but this having extra liquid is still the simplest, safest pickling process. I'm sticking with it. If it's good enough for government work, it's probably not going to explode in our cupboards. And, besides, it worked last year on the pickled green beans.