Saturday, June 25, 2011

Peaches(strawberries) and Peach Honey

This is Georgia so we have to have a peach post on the blog. Here are the peaches.
This is about 14 lbs of peaches. I saved a few so used about 12 lbs. 
At the start I wanted just some canned peaches to eat with some homemade yogurt (which I have to make tomorrow) but then I remembered the 3 pints of strawberries I got for $ .99  each today so added in two of those. 
To start with you peel the peaches. I know you are supposed to put them in boiling water and then ice water but I have never found that to be a good way to do it. I never have enough ice and when I use that method the peaches are all slimy and hard to deal with afterwards. I just buy my peaches a bit under ripe and peel them like an apple. 
I saved the peelings because I found a recipe for peach honey that I wanted to try (this was an early picture, later there was a large pot of peelings). 
Cut the peaches in half and crack them off of the pit, if possible.

Then clean out the core, just like you would an apple. I put them in the pot and added some Ball Fruit Fresh to keep the color. Then added water and sugar. I added enough water to just cover them and enough 3 cups of sugar. (At this point I decided to use the strawberries so cleaned and took the tops off those and added them to the pot.).

I brought these to a boil and boiled about 5 minutes which made some of the strawberries a bit mushy but I am sure they wills still taste good. I put them in the jars, cleaned the rims and boiling water bathed them for 25 minutes.

Peach Honey

Now while this was going on there was another pot on the back of the stove with the peelings and water in them. I boiled the peelings until the juice turned a very pretty pinkish-red color.  I then strained it and put it back in the pan, added half the amount of sugar to juice which in the is case turned out to be 5 cups of sugar and brought it to a low boil and let it stay that way for quite a while. 

It was supposed to thicken. After an hour or so of no change I gave up and added the suggested amount of 2 tablespoons of pectin and then boiled it for a minute and then put it in jars. 

Hopefully it will thicken as it sets. Knowing my luck with these things, I will end up with peach jelly instead but that will be just as good anyway. The point is that I didn't waste the peelings. I also saved them when I drained them and will be giving them to the ducks when I feed them later.
Here are the end results.

13 comments:

  1. I love the idea of using the peels as well. I think I will have a go at bottling nectarines in the Summer. Thanks for the prompt.

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  2. You can make nectarine honey with the peels as well I'm sure.

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  3. Now what I want is a really RIPE peach. I want the juice to run down my chin when I bite into one! The ones we get here are always green-tinged and crunchy - which is not what a peach is supposed to be like. If you pick peaches before they are mature they never ripen properly.

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  4. But they'll taste just fine if you can them in a light syrup :) Ours never have a green tinge but they are always hard. You leave them on the counter a few days and they ripen up nicely usually. My brother-in-law was dehydrating some yesterday and I am anxious to hear how that came out. I may do that with a few of those that I have left or maybe some peach leather or something like that.

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  5. This looks soooo good!! I am getting hungry just looking at it!! Yummmmmmm!

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  6. Just wanted to mention that the peach honey never did thicken and I wondered what we would use it for until this afternoon. I tried it in milk but it wasn't nearly as good as the strawberry syrup is. Then Christian was asking for milk and his mom said she didn't want to give him more milk and normally she would give him juice at that time of day but she was out. I mixed about a quarter cup of "peach honey" with his sippy cup full of water and it was wonderful. I think it will make a good drink to take to work when I get sick of water, just mix it in the water bottles first. As a matter a fact we have some apple syrup that may work just as well. I guess we made all natural kool-aid, lol.

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  7. absolutely LOVE it that you thought of a use for the peels. thanks for this, Becky! such a better option than simply throwing all that goodness away.

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  8. Oh my goodness, that looks delicious!

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  9. I had homemade yogurt with peach/strawberries for breakfast at work from a canning jar. For lunch I had a salad with my tomatoes grown in the hanging baskets and I had peach/water to drink throughout the day. It was all delicious.

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  10. Beautiful jars full of peaches and I love the color of your peach honey. It's is so neat how even when things don't turn out perfectly you can still use it. Nothing goes to waste. I just finished canning up blueberries another pretty fruit:)

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  11. I have some blueberries coming soon. We will be going to u-pick it farm.

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  12. Looks so yummy and what a great idea to use the peel.

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  13. Great post! The strawberries and peaches combined in the pot already look SO good!

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