Foodie Friday: Attack of the fruit

Well despite the lack of food on this blog lately, it has not been lacking in the kitchen.  And as much as i tried to get this post up earlier today, it didn’t happen.

Anyway last week we were on vacation, but the weekend before I decided to come home with these

That’s 50lbs of fresh picked peaches.  Picked by yours truly and the Mr.

Like so (pardon the iPhone photo)

Okay, so Luna helped a little too (in the way of moral support… or hurry up fusses)… She LOOOVES peaches, but she pretty much loves any handout these days.  Pardon the bruises on the peaches, that was from piling 50lbs into 4 bags.  Next time we will not do this.  Also notice the dehydrator below the shelf, that’s my mom’s.  Its probably from the 80’s or earlier, BUT still works well enough for drying our various dog treats.  I’m thinking of drying some of the peaches from walmart that are not so good (quite horrid actually) I bet they would love them (much better than sweet potato).

Anyway I had a lot of work to do, not to mention the kennel was full of boarding dogs and training dogs.  Soooo kinda was a lot of bad timing on my part. But I made the best of it.  First up was peach Jam!

6 pints of it. This was the first time I have made Peach Jam, and the first time I have canned anything.  Hopefully it will turn out alright, we won’t know until we try some later on.  All of the lids did “pop” so I think we are good to go.

Next up was to can some peach slices.  So not sure about this recipe, so many ways to can slices.  I am hoping these are tasty, the color improved after they had “set up.”

And last but TOTALLY not least, Peach Butter!  Can you believe 16 peaches went into these measly 2 pints?  If I had known it would take that many I would have made a larger batch.  I have however learned from this divine creation and more shall be made next year, with the aid of my crock pot which I have figured out is the best way for sure (latest batch of Apple butter confirmed that). And because I love this peach butter so much (did I mention there was a smidge left over that would not fit in the jars?) here is the recipe

SPICED PEACH BUTTER

Makes about 12 ounces.

Equipment

3-quart saucepan
immersion blender or jar blender
2 plastic freezer jars or glass jars with lids

Ingredients

1 pound (454 g) diced fresh peaches, from about 4 medium to large peaches
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 cup (88 g) granulated cane sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Preparation

1. Pour the peaches into the sauce pan and add the lemon juice. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer about 5 minutes. The peaches should turn mushy.

2. Blend the mixture with an immersion blender or in a jar blender until very smooth.

3. Return the pureed peaches to the pan and add the sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered until the mixture is thick, about 25 minutes, stirring frequently.

4. Remove from heat and cool completely. Store in a jar in the refrigerator or freezer. Will keep for up to 3 weeks in the refrigerator and 3 to 4 months in the freezer.

Peaches 3 ways

Outside of the peaches we ate when we got home, and while I canned these various forms of peachy goodness this is the product of about 40lbs of those peaches.

Oh and did I mention I made two types of peach cookies, the above of which was a flop as far as snail-mailing cookies go.  But I modified an applesauce recipe with peaches instead… sadly it did not result in peach flavored cookies, but they were pretty good anyhow.

And peaches were not the only thing we picked, I grabbed 12lbs of Ginger gold apples.  I made a pie out of some, and Apple butter with most of the rest. Sadly I did not have any ice cream or whip cream even.  I might just run to the store tomorrow before I eat more of the Peach Pie I made.  Don’t you wish you lived here?

Not to be left out I also made a new chicken recipe

Garlic Cheddar Chicken.  I also whipped up some Venison Stroganoff and my Honey Oat bread.  Now I need to find an exercise based hobby so I can get rid of any side effects of all this goodness.

I hope you all have had a good week.