Peaches, Peaches and More Peaches!!!!

We landed in Georgia just in time for peach picking season!  We’ve been peach picking before, and knowing we had enough time at my aunt’s place to do some preserves, we went a little peach crazy!  We filled three 20 gallon buckets with peaches (and then ended up going back for an additional bucket!), as well as 3 pounds of blueberries.

 

In addition to eating fresh peaches with every meal, we had blueberry muffins, peach muffins and peach cobbler.  And then we began preserving.

 Peach preserves, peach halves, peach salsa and peach butter – all in large quantities to help us get through the winter when there is little local fresh fruit available!  Here is a look at just a fraction of what we preserved:

 

Preserving peaches is not too hard.  The hardest part is that you need to remove the skin, but the easiest trick is to throw them in a big pot, cover with water and bring to a boil.  Then let them sit in the warm water until the water cools.  This blanching technique makes the skin slide ride off of a ripe peach and makes less peaches much easier to peel.  Once the peaches have their skins off, it just depends on what you want to do with them.

 

Our peach halves simply got covered with “simple syrup” a combination of 1 part sugar, 3 parts water that has come to a boil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The peach preserves were simply hand squished, combined with sugar and boiled to the right consistency.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the peach salsa, we used this recipe:

13 – 15 peaches (diced small)

8 – 10 tomatoes (diced small)

3 – 5 green peppers (diced small)

1 onion (diced small)

1 cup of lemon juice

salt & pepper to taste

 

 

 

For peach butter, we used a full crockpot of peaches – blanched, peeled and squished with 4 cups of sugar, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spices.  Leave it in the crockpot on high for 5 hours or on low overnight, and then either blend or use a mixer to get the right consistency.

 

All of our peach recipes were canned in a simple hot water bath for 15 minutes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The blueberries were easier, they simply get thrown into a baggie and stuck in the freezer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now we can’t wait for apple season!