canning

This past summer I decided to become more "domesticated" as my brother puts it ... I decided to learn how to can fruits. As a child of the internet-age, I headed online to find some recipes and tips, and I stumbled upon this gem of a website, with the sort of idiot-proof instructions I needed as a beginner and then I waited until peaches were on sale. Unfortunately that happened on the hottest days of the summer, when it was in the mid-30s and our little house was just as hot. I had to wait until 8:30 at night, with all of the windows wide open to begin my experiment...

Here's the final product, just in case you were doubting ... :)

washing the peaches in my wonderful strainer - another fantastic wedding present!

some of my utensils - the funnel was a new purchase just for my experiment!

one of the new, fancy-pants tricks I learned about canning was to boil the peaches for about 45 seconds and then pop them into ice water (see below) ... the skins peeled right off!

I ran out of ice, so I substitued an ice-pak, and it worked pretty good!

watch those peels just slide right off...

I boiled them in a "light syrup"

And here they are! mmm... so delicious....

I read that if the syrup is too heavy, the peaches float, but even with a light syrup, they still floated...so I think I just need to fit more peaches into those tiny little jars!!!

Now I can't wait for next year to try some more! I picked up a cherry-pitter, just in time for cherries to head out of the supermarket ... alas, another year will pass... but beware fruit aisle! I'm waiting anxiously!!