Pickled Peaches

Even with all the resources at hand, the directions for our first venture into canning - pickled peaches - came from the Internet. I think we ended up making three batches of pickled peaches. 

The first had too much juice I thought.

The second I did in smaller jars - pint size - but because they were smaller, it was harder to get the fruit in without smushing it. It didn't look that pretty. 

So the third time around I went back to the quart size jar. This time the dilemma was that the fruit was a bear to pit. Those things would just not come out! So while I was doing all I could to preserve the fruit while getting the pit out, the syrup was just a simmering away. After I got it into the jars it proceeded to settle to the bottom and pretty much caramelize into a solid mass.  I was out of time, and peaches, though - so this would have to do. 

It must have been okay - I got a first place ribbon at the State Fair!*

Pickled Peaches

MAKES 2 QUARTS

INGREDIENTS

3½ cups sugar
1½ cups white vinegar
14-16 ripe medium peaches, peeled
8 whole cloves
2 sticks cinnamon
1" piece ginger, peeled and thinly sliced

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Bring a canning pot of water to a boil. Submerge 2 one-quart canning jars and their lids and ring bands in boiling water; sterilize equipment for 10 minutes. Remove from boiling water with tongs, draining jars, and transfer to a clean dish towel.

2. Combine sugar, vinegar, and 1½ cups water in a heavy medium-size pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Working in batches slide peaches into the pickling liquid and cook, turning once or twice, until peaches soften but before they turn fuzzy, 4–5 minute per batch. Transfer peaches to a bowl as done.

3. Divide cloves, cinnamon, and ginger between the 2 jars. Cut any peaches with brown spots into halves or quarters, discarding pits, and trim away the brown spots. Spoon peaches into the jars, filling the gaps with the halves and quarters and packing the jars as tightly as possible.

4. Return pickling liquid to a boil, then pour boiling liquid into each jar, covering peaches and filling jar to 1/4" from the rims. Let liquid settle in jars, then add more boiling liquid as necessary. Discard any remaining liquid. Wipe jar rims with a clean dish towel, place lids on jars, and screw on ring bands.

5. Transfer filled jars to a canning rack, submerge in a canning pot of gently boiling water (jars should be covered by at least 1" of water), and process for 10 minutes. Carefully lift jars from water with jar tongs and place on a dish towel at least 1" apart to let cool undisturbed for 24 hours. To test that jars have properly sealed, press on center of each lid. Remove your finger; if lid stays down, it's sealed. Refrigerate any jars of pickled peaches that aren't sealed; use within 4 weeks.



*judges comments: Really good peach flavor! Nice spicing, firm fruit. Nice product! (I'd cut peaches a little smaller, but that's me)

Plan of (non-botulism) Attack

Food preserving is all about keeping food safe for longer. And one of the main points of the food preservation competitions at the State Fair is to help educate people about appropriate canning procedures. To that end, all entries must meet USDA standards as outlined by one of three sources: 1) USDA Guide to Home Canning, 2) Ball Blue Book, or 3) So Easy to Preserve.

We bought ourselves the first two, plus the ATK cookbook (Foolproof Preserving), and figured we'd be good to go. The USDA guide definitely has the basics of what and how to do it, but I prefer the Ball Blue Book. In addition to step by step directions of how to process a wide variety of items, it includes recipes of how to use the items you preserve. I really like this addition because I think it's easy to can a lot of things and then never use them because you're saving them for "food storage for the apocalypse" or something. We decided early on in this adventure that we're not going to can anything we wouldn't eat, and are trying to use them - though perhaps judicially - as part of our everyday pantry. 

Pots and Pans for the Biggest Fan

Anyone who knows Bradley knows that he loves him some America's Test Kitchen. I think we have almost all of their cookbooks. He will often consult them when needing to buy new equipment or ingredients. This canning adventure was no different.


The recommended water bath canning pot was the Victorio stainless steel multi-use canner. Luckily Amazon and my visa have a very close relationship and we were able to get it in just a few days.

The other pieces of equipment we acquired were from Ball and included:

• canning jars and lids of various sizes - pints and quarts mostly, but a fair amount of half pints, too. 
• jar lifter
• lid lifter
• funnel
• headspace ruler

We also got some canning salt - apparently that's a thing - and some Pickle Crisp - another previously unknown thing that makes the world a better place.

With all our gear in hand we were ready to start!

Preserving Date Night

Like a lot of good things in my life, this started with the State Fair. 

I have entered something in the State Fair for several years, and a few years back I convinced Bradley to do the same. When his chocolate chip cookies won 3rd place, he was hooked! In 2016 we decided we wanted to do some of the food preservation entries the following year, so we scoped out the competition. 

Armed with the knowledge that chow chow probably wasn't going to be a good first showing for us, and that no one on earth had even heard of pickled peaches, we were ready. 

We got all the equipment, picked up some produce from the local farmer's market (and/or Costco), and got busy! The first time we tried this craziness was a Friday night. At first Bradley felt kind of bad for having this as a date night, but we had so much fun with it that we joked about making a blog to chronicle our genius. 

A couple of days later I had it. It just came to me. Which, of course, means it was meant to be. 

Preserving Date Night. 

It's perfect! 

It has layers, depth. 

It's an adventure. 

Oh, and it's award winning.