Adventures in Canning Part 1

I love cooking and preserving. In my search for awesome recipes I came across this one.. Peach Butter. I liked the fact that you didn't need to peel the skins off the peaches. 

Yesterday was Friday and I worked until 4:30. When I got off I raced up to Penzey's Spice Store near my house to pick up the cardamom and nutmeg I knew I didn't have at home. 

Earlier in the week I'd pitted, sliced and pureed 10 (or so) lbs of peaches. (Blessed that my parents own a VitaMix so blending all of that was a snap.) Once the fruit was liquified, I put everything in silicone ice cube trays..... And after I ended up with much more puree than ice cube trays, so I looked around and hit upon...

Yup - muffin pans! I put paper liners in and filled 'em up! (The pans at my place are much more beat up though!) I even used some of those disposable aluminum pans you can get from supermarkets.

Welllll, fast forward to Friday afternoon....................... 

After I got home from the store I quickly started pitting and slicing the rest of the peaches. (I ended up with roughly 15 lbs of the puree. w00ps! Rcipe called for 15 lbs of fruit - before pitting!) I cut way down on the cinnamon in the recipe - only used 1 tablespoon as opposed to 3 in the recipe. I added 1 vanilla bean and roughly 2-2 1/2 cups of cane sugar; neither of which were called for in the recipe.

The frozen peaches were dumped into the pot while I buzzed the freshly cut fruit in the VitaMix and added it.

Canning kettle on 2 left burners, pot with 1/2 pt. jars on back right and fruit right front .

I cooked the butter for an extra hour, as it had taken that long for the frozen puree to fully thaw. Spices were added, per the recipe, at the beginning.

about an hour into simmering

The results below

24 1/2 pint jars + 1 pint. 

Oh yeah - I broke a 25th 1/2 pint jar when I put it into the hot water bath. There's a first time for everything!

Result? Not too sweet fruit butter that is excellent on hot buttered toast.

Shared with:

Putting up corn

My Mom saw a video similar to this one...

Sweet Corn Cutting 

and showed it to my Dad who was inspired.

So.... 

 This ^ happened last Friday..

Unfortunately, the yield wasn't as great as I had hoped for. We ended up with 14 qt bags plus a partial one after blanching & cooling 100+ ears.

Of course - it would've been slightly more if I hadn't kept nibbling on the kernels I cut the old fashioned way.

Dad and I are both hoping to put up another batch of corn, but first up?

Bread and Butter Pickles

Sweet Pickle Relish

and

Peach Butter - the nutritious way from Nourished Kitchen - Peach Butter

Shared with:

Sunday Worship

Sunday Worship

Sunday Worship & Musings

The battle is already won, it's time to STAND in the victory we have through Christ Jesus.

God's Smuggler

Been listening the the audio version of this. Now am half way thru a second listening and it's still as gripping as my first listen.

I read my parent's old copy to pieces when I was a girl, and recently wanted to reread it again, but after browsing my library's online books came across an audio version.

Brother Andrew simply trusts God to provide. Has since the early '50's as a young, reckless Dutch soldier when God confronted him.

From 'The Game Of The Royal Way', to innumerable near misses (that should've been captures) upon entering Communist countries with stacks of Bibles and tracts.

The soldiers at the various borders literally could NOT stop the work that God wanted Brother Andrew to be doing.

Sunday Worship & Musings

There's a lot going on in my life right now, I'm praying about some things... where God is leading me from here... and so on.

Fear is an ugly, crippling thing.