Saturday Night's Alright For Canning

Tammy and I spent the late hours of Saturday night helping my parents can 65 jars worth of peaches. My family likes peaches. Once canned, they're really only good for about a year, so we're going to have to eat about 5 jars a month to get through our stock, but no one foresees that being an issue. My parents have canned peaches for years, but it was our first time, so we got educated.

Here's an easy to follow, 10 step process for those interested:

1. First you got to get some peaches and some jars in your house. My parents bought 6 boxes of peaches, and that did about 65 jars, so a box will do almost 11 jars.

2. Sterilize your jars in the dishwasher and wash your hands.

3. Pour about 1/2 a cup of hot water in the bottom of each jar, along with 1/4 cup of sugar and 1/4 tsp of Fruit Fresh. Oh yeah, you got to get some Fruit Fresh in your house too. It keeps the peaches from turning brown.

4. Boil your peaches for 2 minutes and then put them strait into a sink full of cold water. Once in the cold water, the peels will just slide off and they're ready to be sliced up. Remember to remove the pits and any other elements of the peach that might look a little suspect.

5. Once the peaches were sliced up, we put them into a bowl of water and Fruit Fresh until the next person could get them into the jars, but you could probably put them strait into the jars if you wanted to.

6. Fill the jars pretty full and then top them up with more hot water until the peaches are completely submerged and the water level is about an inch from the mouth of the jar.

7. The lids come in two pieces: the metal ring, and the disk with the rubber edge. The disks should sit in some warm to hot water for a while. That softens the rubber ring which is going to act as a seal when you finally put the lids on.

8. Put the lids on.

9. Submerge the jars in a canning pot filled with boiling water for about 20 minutes to finish the sealing process. If you hear popping noises from the lids, that's a good sign. The lids should be flat when you remove them from the canning pot, and once they've cooled, you can press on the center of the lid to test the seal. If there is no give in the lid, it's sealed. If it pops up and down, you blew it. That never happens though.

10. Finally, you'll want to store them in a cool dry place an eat 5 jars a month for a year.

It's quite the production actually, but it's fun to do and they taste a lot better then the ones you buy at the store that are floating in syrup. We haven't sampled this batch yet because we're still working on last year's harvest, and also because my Mom doesn't like anyone to eat them for a month so she can enjoy looking at 65 jars of peaches on the shelf in the basement. I guess we'll be eating 6 jars a month for a year.