It's just Peachy!

The family and I stopped at a wonderful little (and famous) peach orchard in Mexia, TX. It's actually pronounced "ma-hay-ya" not like Mexico misspelled. It was hot, and hot, and hot down there but the peaches were so happy!

We bought one box of grade 1 peaches which, I learned, meant that they were the prettiest peaches with no scars or bruises.

We brought these little guys home and wanted to preserve the summer succulence for those colder months ahead. But don't worry, I cut little "spots" off and popped them into my mouth so I was sure to get plenty summer flavors!

Ok, to prep peaches, the best trick we've stumbled upon is to dunk them in boiling water for about 30 seconds and then in cold water in the sink (thanks mom). The skins peel off so easily they almost fall off, which is awesome when you are doing an entire box of peaches.

I followed the recipe in the Ball Bluebook (you remember the one) and cooked the peaches in a sugary syrup.

The blue thing you see in the pot is called a Food Loop and you can go to http://www.thefoodloop.com/ to watch the video of how wonderful this contraption really is. The best way to describe it is a silicone, stretchy zip-strip for cooking. They are re-usable wash great. The recipe called for allspice and whole spice wrapped in cheesecloth so that's how I secured the bag closed so the spices would stay nestled inside and wouldn't cloud the pretty, red syrup.

We put the peaches in whatever jars I had leftover. Most were wide-mouth jars but I had to use a couple of regular mouth jars...and that was tricky. You see, a good peach canner will put the peaches in the jar with the rounded side up and then gently lay the others on top. With a smaller mouth jar, the peach flips over and you can't get your hand in there to flip it back (statement of experience). Another thing to remember is that whenever you are canning, you have to get the air bubbles out and those little stinker peaches were hiding air bubbles all over the place. I would hold up the very hot jar and have my daughter look underneath to make sure we squeezed out those pesky bubbles.

After layering, pouring syrup, pushing out air bubbles, and screwing on lids and rings, it's into the water bath for 20 minutes. And here we are.......PEACHES!