Canning season kickoff: Peaches (and what to do with 'em)

We got ourselves around 25 pounds of Georgia peaches this past weekend. Time to break out the canning equipment.

Canned peaches are a favorite at Chez Zen. Most especially they're loved in peach cobbler. Mr. Zen and the kids (Zenlets?) adore peach cobbler. I'll post my uber-secret, uber-easy recipe at the bottom of this post.

Back to canning. Peaches are a high-acid food and may be safely canned using the boiling water bath method.

Here's what you need to can peaches.

2-3 lbs. of peaches per quart (half this amount per pint)
Sugar
Fruit Fresh or lemon juice

Wash and rinse canning jars, lids and rings. Keep jars and lids hot. Do not boil the lids. Prepare boiling water canner for canning.

Prepare canning syrup. I use a light syrup. For a 9 pint canner load, add 1 1/2 cups sugar for 5-3/4 cups water. For a 7 quart canner load, add 2 1/4 cups sugar to 9 cups water. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Reduce heat and keep syrup at a simmer.

Wash and peel peaches. You can peel peaches by dipping them in boiling water for 60 seconds them dunking them in ice water. The peel should slip right off. I don't have consistent success with this, so I peel my peaches by hand. I've also used a rotary apple peeler to peel peaches. It's your preference. (SAVE THOSE PEELS - We'll use them later!)

Cut peaches in half. Remove the pits. (SAVE THE PITS - We'll use them later, too.) Depending on how you want your peaches, you can keep them in halves, or cut them in slices. I prefer mine sliced.

Treat peaches to prevent darkening. You can put them in a large bowl of water with Fruit Fresh - use 1 tsp. Fruit Fresh per cup of water. Or, you can use 1 tsp. lemon juice per cup of water instead.

You may can peaches in one of two ways - Hot Pack or Raw Pack. Hot Pack is where you cook the fruit for a few minutes in the syrup and then pour it all into jars. Raw Pack is where you put the cold, uncooked fruit into jars and then pour the hot syrup on top of the fruit.

I prefer the Hot Pack method with peaches because it makes the fruit less likely to float to the top of the jar during storage. It also is better at keeping the fruit's color from darkening.

Hot pack—Drain peaches and place them in the simmering pot of syrup. Bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Fill hot jars with hot fruit and syrup, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. If you're canning peach halves and not slices, place the slices in layers, cut side down.

Raw pack—Drain peaches. Fill hot jars with peaches, cut side down if canning peach halves, and add hot syrup, leaving 1/2-inch headspace.

Remove air bubbles by sliding a spatula into the jar and gently pressing against the fruit. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened clean towel. Adjust lids and process.

Processing times:
Hot Pack: 20 minutes for pints, 25 minutes for quarts (or adjusted for altitude)
Raw Pack: 25 minutes for pints, 30 minutes for quarts (or adjusted for altitude)

Now, what to do with those peach peels and pits I told you to save... make jelly! (What else?)

Peach peel jelly is absolutely gorgeous and it tastes amazing. The only way I can describe the color is to call it a "sunrise in a jar." I gave this away as gifts last Christmas and everybody went crazy over it.

Besides the taste and the color, it's also ultra-frugal. Getting two uses out of one thing is always a winner in my book.

PEACH PEEL JELLY

Peach peels and pits
3 cups sugar
1 box powered pectin (like Sure-Jell)

Wash peach peels and pits. Place in a large pot and add enough water to just cover the peels. Bring to a boil and simmer 30 minutes.

Strain juice through a damp jelly bag, cheesecloth, or flour sack towel (what I use). Measure 3 cups juice. (If you don't have enough juice, you can pour more water through the peels or just add unsweetened apple juice to make up the difference.)

Prepare boiling water canner for canning. Wash and rinse jelly jars, rings and lids. Keep jars and lids hot - do not boil lids.

Pour juice in a large pot. Stir in powdered pectin. Bring to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down.

Stir in sugar and return to a full rolling boil. Boil for 1 minute.

Remove from heat and skim off foam. Pour hot jelly into hot jars. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened clean towel. Adjust lids and process.

Processing time: 10 minutes for half-pint jars (or adjusted for altitude). Yield about 7 half-pints.

You can do all sorts of things with canned peaches. But our hands-down favorite is...

PEACH COBBLER
1 quart canned peaches UNDRAINED
1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups milk
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put stick of butter in a 9 x 13 inch baking pan and place in oven to melt butter. Remove from oven as soon as butter is melted so that it won't brown.

In a large bowl, stir together flour and sugar. Slowly stir in milk to avoid lumpy batter.

Pour batter into baking pan, right on top of the melted butter. DO NOT STIR IN THE PAN! This is very important to achieve the proper "cobbler" texture.

Open jar of peaches and pour into the pan - syrup and all, right into the batter. DO NOT STIR!

Return pan to oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until crust has risen and is golden brown.

This is amazing served with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream. It's also one of the recipes my grandmother said was essential to "catchin' a feller."

I guess it worked! To this day, Mr. Zen says the only reason he married me was for my peach cobbler. (That's okay - I only married him for his OCD compulsion to wash the dishes.)

Nah, that's not true. He also a good free auto mechanic.