I know I said about a week ago that we were going to can the peaches. We (my brother, Racer, and I) canned all day Saturday and finished up canning the last of the slow cooker peach butter today. Yes, I know, I worked on Sunday but it was only putting the butter into jars and processing it which is really nothing.
So, first, the count. We started with 75 pounds of peaches and did Three pie fillings frozen and in the freezer, 18 quarts of canned peach slices, 3 half pints of lavender peach butter, 7 half pints of peach butter and 1 pint of the same, 14 half pints and 2 pints of peach jam, and 4 pints of peach vanilla syrup.
Now to the reviews. I tried Tattler reuseable lids for the first time. I suppose with anything new there will be a learning curve, but I wasn't impressed. Out of 12 lids, 9 did not seal. I reprocessed those and still had seal failures. I'm not sure the other ones will stay sealed either. I just have very little faith in them. I know a lot of people love them, but I am not one of them. Maybe I'll be a convert after I have used them a few times.
I ended up not doing any dehydrated peaches. It's still something I would like to try, but not this year. The vanilla canned peaches just taste like peaches. Well, there's a little vanilla taste kind of near the bottom, but it's not what I expected from sticking in a quarter of a vanilla bean in each jar. I have some hope that the vanilla taste will get stronger and permeate more of the jar as they are sealed. My biggest problem is the texture of the peaches. The turned really mushy in the jar. They were super hard to separate too so we may have mushed them a bit before we even got them in the jar. But the Bubbers both love them and ate them up. I should have got a picture of how messy Bubbers #2 got tonight. It necessitated removing all of his clothing, his hook on high chair, his full coverage bib, and the floor cover. The peach jam has not set up like I would prefer it to, but we'll give that some time and I'm sure it will taste good regardless. The peach vanilla syrup recipe looks great. It's a pretty simple recipe so it would be hard to mess up. I may have cooked the peach butters a little long and there's not much lavender taste to the lavender butter, but my brother says he really likes it. So at least one person will eat it.
Hmm, looking back I have a lot of negative comments on my canning. Here's some positive. So far I have no seal failures on my conventional lids. I have a full cupboard of peach products. And I can make peach butter muffins along with the rest of the apple butters I need to use up before we move into apple season. And I got the peaches for .49/lb.
Now I need to see if I can scrounge for apricots in the next couple weeks. I should drive by the ballet school we used to go to and see if that person is advertising free apricots again.
So, first, the count. We started with 75 pounds of peaches and did Three pie fillings frozen and in the freezer, 18 quarts of canned peach slices, 3 half pints of lavender peach butter, 7 half pints of peach butter and 1 pint of the same, 14 half pints and 2 pints of peach jam, and 4 pints of peach vanilla syrup.
Now to the reviews. I tried Tattler reuseable lids for the first time. I suppose with anything new there will be a learning curve, but I wasn't impressed. Out of 12 lids, 9 did not seal. I reprocessed those and still had seal failures. I'm not sure the other ones will stay sealed either. I just have very little faith in them. I know a lot of people love them, but I am not one of them. Maybe I'll be a convert after I have used them a few times.
I ended up not doing any dehydrated peaches. It's still something I would like to try, but not this year. The vanilla canned peaches just taste like peaches. Well, there's a little vanilla taste kind of near the bottom, but it's not what I expected from sticking in a quarter of a vanilla bean in each jar. I have some hope that the vanilla taste will get stronger and permeate more of the jar as they are sealed. My biggest problem is the texture of the peaches. The turned really mushy in the jar. They were super hard to separate too so we may have mushed them a bit before we even got them in the jar. But the Bubbers both love them and ate them up. I should have got a picture of how messy Bubbers #2 got tonight. It necessitated removing all of his clothing, his hook on high chair, his full coverage bib, and the floor cover. The peach jam has not set up like I would prefer it to, but we'll give that some time and I'm sure it will taste good regardless. The peach vanilla syrup recipe looks great. It's a pretty simple recipe so it would be hard to mess up. I may have cooked the peach butters a little long and there's not much lavender taste to the lavender butter, but my brother says he really likes it. So at least one person will eat it.
Hmm, looking back I have a lot of negative comments on my canning. Here's some positive. So far I have no seal failures on my conventional lids. I have a full cupboard of peach products. And I can make peach butter muffins along with the rest of the apple butters I need to use up before we move into apple season. And I got the peaches for .49/lb.
Now I need to see if I can scrounge for apricots in the next couple weeks. I should drive by the ballet school we used to go to and see if that person is advertising free apricots again.