orange food week, part 2: canning peach butter

[moominmolly]

First, I have to say, I really love those crazy canners, Bernice and Paul. Seriously. Not only do they have recipes for just about anything I'd want to can, I can also check out everything they've canned since 1966. Note that occasionally, they have no canning record for the year because they were working in China.

M: Look. Everything they've canned for the past FORTY YEARS.
D: I love the internet.
M: Me too!
D: Like, "What's In My Closet?"!
M: I don't know! Let's ask THE INTERNET!

Anyway. Yeah. I love these folks.

So! Tonight's canning steps:

- Buy asston of peaches (done earlier)
- Peel and quarter 18 peaches. Save the peels in an extra bowl. This is easier, apparently, if you blanch the peaches first, but I'm lazy.
- Simmer the peach bits in water until significantly mushier than when you started.
- Ladle into a blender and puree.
- Pour into crockpot.
- For every 2 cups peach puree, add 1 c sugar. I had about 10 cups puree. Woo!
- Add: generous dose of brandy, clove, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Stir.
- Turn crockpot up to high and leave alone for a few hours, stirring in a rather desultory way from time to time.

[time passes. go take a shower and watch cirque du soleil video with dilletante.]

According to the Nolls, peach butter wants to be canned for 10 minutes. According to epicurious, things canned for 10 minutes or longer do not have separately-boiled jars. So:

- In canning bath, bring jars to a boil. Turn back down to just below a simmer (keep the water hot, but not TOO hot)
- Boil the lids separately, quickly, and leave them in hot water.
- One at a time, bring the jars out of the canning bath with tongs, and ladle peach butter in to within 1/2" of the top.
- Wipe jar threads clean.
- Add jar lid (with tongs! TONGS!) and ring, and replace jar into water bath.
- Repeat until you've put all the peach butter in jars.
- Turn the heat up to high.
- When the water reaches a boil, turn it back down to a slow boil and boil for the appropriate time.
- After they've cooled, press the little button thingy in the center of the jar lid. If it stays down, the jar is sealed and can be put wherever you want! If it pops back up, refrigerate and eat quickly.
- Celebrate!

Side note: if you save the peach peels in a bowl, you can puree them afterwards with orange juice, a splash of lemon for tang, and maybe those Frozen Gobbets of Mango from Trader Joe's you've got left in the back of the freezer. Then pour into leftover Fresh Samantha bottles and enjoy fibery mango-peach nectar at your leisure. Not only is this tasty, it means you don't have to obsess about cutting as little flesh as possible off when you peel the peaches, since you're going to eat it anyway.

Why am I obsessed with orange things this week? No idea! I even bought orange-flavored Mr. Clean.

Anyway, off to shower.

Comments

[maighread.livejournal.com]

Oh look...you've made me drool! Peachy!

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

you know, all my years of canning and i never used a water bath. sterilized the jars in the oven and sterilized the caps on the stovetop in water. poured the hothothot sterile canning substance (meyer lemon marmalade in one case!) into the hothothot sterile jars and cap AQAP. let cool. bam! sealed!

never had one get infected either. if the seal doesn't go down: 'fridge - eat.

water baths are too much of a hassle.

n.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

That does sound enticingly simpler. This is the first time I've tried to can anything -- I did a couple of jars your way (well, jars sterilized in water) and the rest in a water bath. We'll see how it goes! I'd love for this method to work for me. :)

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

the key is to put the cold jars in the cold oven and heat them up slowly. and you must keep them hot right up until the moment you put the jam in them! requires dexterity, and flexible oven gloves/mitts -- which is the hardest thing to come by.

but ooooh! so worth it.

n.

[veek.livejournal.com]

My goodness, I think you're going to get me back into canning.

Now, of course, I REALLY NEED TO GO TO THE FARMERS' MARKET RIGHT NOW.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Okay, so! I did a couple this way, last night, and sure enough, the little seals popped down and they look all snug and secure. So EASY! But, hm, here's what I don't know: *how* sterile must the jar lids be, and how quick do I have to be when doing it this way? I found that I was MUCH slower at getting the jar lid out with my crappy jar tongs and putting it on the top of a filled jar than I was at getting the jar itself, filling it, and wiping it. How do I know when I'm creating a hazard? Do I have to be lightnin'-quick, or am I just competing speed-wise with the old and arthritic?

I mean, I can be kind of hazardous. I don't want to tempt fate.

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

the lids should be boiled for 10-15 minutes, like any other lids. i usually do that just as my simmering time is ending.

i dunno when you are creating a hazard. i know that i haven't had a single jar go off though. i've probably canned a total of about 75 jars of stuff in my life. *shrug*

i think you just have to be quick enough to get it all done while it's REally Hot. don't forget, most air is realively sterile. it's the SURFACES of things that aren't.

a'course, if you sneeze directly into the jar, prior to lidding it, you may have a problem :)

n.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i really like the link to "canning headspace guidelines" :)

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I hadn't seen that. :) Still: aftercare of jams and jellies is v. important, and I'm not even going to get into relishes.

[wolfkitn.livejournal.com]

I even bought orange-flavored Mr. Clean.

um... *flavored*?

(just checking... :) )

you noticed!

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

(just being a dork. :) )

Re: you noticed!

[wolfkitn.livejournal.com]

don't mind me; i was just concerned for the future health of your progeny. ;)

[bemocked.livejournal.com]

to top off the orange-food-feeding-frenzy an extra sharp Double Gloucester is called for, no?

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Ooh! I like that plan.

[harimad.livejournal.com]

Not canning but food-saving idea: fruit that's lived in the fridge too long may be untasty but safe. Puree and freeze into fruit pops. (I tried canning once. The lid buttons didn't pop but after a few months I saw bubbles in the tomato sauce. It's the freezer for me.)

[sconstant.livejournal.com]

I think those Bernice and Paul people are ringers - by my quick count, in their first recorded year (1966) they put up 106.5 GALLONS of stuff.

If you're going to do it right, according to my observations of my mother, the last step is, while cleaning up, to swear that you will never, ever ever do this again, and those in earshot should not ever even suggest that you do so. It was usually (always, maybe even) jam/jelly, though, and it could be that the excessive amounts of sticky involved are what really prompted this.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

They're just CANNING MADMEN. Who are we to doubt? (Though that is a suspicious amount of greenbeans. Nobody could like greenbeans that much.)

[sconstant.livejournal.com]

I don't doubt that they're telling the truth. I just think that 1966 was clearly not their first year canning, or else they're from a family for which canning is a huge tradition. Noone can, in their first year, can 100 gallons. Can they?

S.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I see! That is kind of odd. Either it was their first year, and they just had a whole lot of time on their hands, or it WASN'T their first year, and they just suddenly decided to write down everything they'd canned in a little notebook for safe keeping. But... why?

I guess that's a question very firmly entrenched in the modern age: Why would you write that down, if you couldn't post it to the internet? My mom had a little notebook recording every Christmas ornament she'd ever bought or received, and which Christmas she'd received it, with notes going back to her first Christmas with my father. But, I mean, that was stuff she dragged out year after year and could get sentimental about. I just can't see saying, "Oh, Bernice, remember the fifty-seventh quart of greenbeans in 1966?"

Maybe they'd canned in small batches before but then they moved to a place with a gigantic cellar in 1966.

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

I don't even like jelly and that sounds cool :) But how on earth do you screw on the ring using tongs?!

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Once you have the lid on the jar, you can screw on the ring with your fingers. Good thing, since I'm not screwing anything on with tongs. :)

But yeah, the whole process was pretty satisfying and totally easy. You could can pickles, maybe?

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

Chutney! Or jelly for other people! I also love making (but hate eating) pie, so there is a precedent :)

ooo, chutney!

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Well, canning supplies (jars and lids and tongs) are all 50% off at TAGS in Porter Square right now. Not to be overly tempting, or anything. :)

Re: ooo, chutney!

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

What was that you were saying? Sorry, I was distracted by reading about canning... ;)

[rising-moon.livejournal.com]

Boil the lids separately, quickly, and leave them in hot water.

Huh. Following ancestral instruction M and I thoroughly cleaned the lids (flat, round, red-rimmed things, right?) but pulled them out before the water started boiling. We upturned the jars once they were filled and capped, and the hot jam succeeded in heating the caps until they sealed.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm all for ancestral tradition. I was just asking the internet and the bottom of the box of jars that I bought. This was exciting, because sources said everything from "for the love of god, don't actually BOIL the lids" to "please, for the love of god, boil the damn lids". I decided to go with the sources that said to put the lids in water, bring it to a boil, and immediately reduce the heat down to simmer.

Your way sounds fun, though.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Like this (http://www.paulnoll.com/Oregon/Canning/apricot-step-03.html)! Ahh, the Nolls, my unlikely canning saviors.

[rising-moon.livejournal.com]

Ah! That makes sense. I think everyone wants to make sure a) the lids are sterilized, b) the red rubbery waxy stuff doesn't melt and ruin the seal.

Yummy peaches... :)

[moonshadow.livejournal.com]

OMG.

Can I trade you something for some peach butter? *hopeful*

[leeble.livejournal.com]

I included the peach peels in my peach butter. Just pureed the things all together. Now that you have eaten it, I have to tell you that the reason I made peach butter was because Emma (my dog) bit about 1/2 of 1/2 of the peaches (she counter-surfed and also got about 1/2 of the rasperries I had that day) and they were a bit too soft to make pie anyway. So I just pitted and pureed :) I am sure yours will be fantastic :)

[kateorama.livejournal.com]

Too many other comments for me to read through and see if someone said this already... BUT -- my parents always sterilized the jars and lids in the dishwasher. In fact, that was the only time besides family-feast holidays that they even used the dishwasher. My sister used it once -- to hide my dad's glasses, because she knew he would never look in there or really be doing dishes for any reason at all. It took like a week or two for him to find them. I've digressed!