Friday, August 13, 2010

Pickled Peaches


Last week the CSA gifted us 20 peaches. That is far more than two adults, one child and one baby with 5.5 teeth can possibly eat in a given week. After all, I must assume that I will get an equal amount of these perky orbs next week.

A friend recommended pickled peaches. I had never heard of these wonders.My friend said she adored them and that they were amazing. Each website that she suggested to me was written by people who loved these peaches. What did I have to lose except 14 peaches and some sugar? Besides, canning doesn’t scare me!

This recipe is from allrecipes.com, it is entitled Nana’s Southern Pickled Peaches.


Original Recipe Yield 4 quarts
Ingredients
4 cups sugar
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup water
2 tablespoons whole cloves
4 pounds fresh clingstone peaches, blanched and peeled
5 (3 inch) cinnamon sticks

Directions
Combine the sugar, vinegar and water in a large pot, and bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Press one or two cloves into each peach, and place into the boiling syrup. Boil for 20 minutes, or until peaches are tender.

Spoon peaches into sterile jars and top with liquid to 1/2 inch from the rim. Put one cinnamon stick into each jar. Wipe the rims with a clean dry cloth, and seal with lids and rings. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes to seal, or consult times recommended by your local extension.
I did all of the above except that I made a half batch and I forgot to boil the peaches in the syrup. I just blanched them and quartered them and put them sliced in the jars like that. My jars were too small to fit whole peaches, so that is my excuse. But really I didn’t read that part of the recipe until the cans were in the water bath. I am sure that mine won’t be as good as yours. But I am getting another 4 pounds worth of fruit soon (really by the time this posts I will have already gotten more). So I am planning on putting these babies up until the fall or winter when I can crack them open and relive the glory days of 80 degree weather and warm breezes and kids that can stay up until 9 because it is still light out and everyone is in a good mood. Only thing is, I put a cinnamon stick in each jar so that they would look pretty-is that going to introduce bacteria and screw everything up?

I had a few peaches that wouldn’t fit into my jars, so they are in a Tupperware in the fridge. Those I will sample this week. Looking forward to it!! The syrup tasted awesome when I sampled it.

1 comment:

  1. Cinnamon has been demonstrated to have strong anti-microbial effects...so the sticks should actually keep bacteria in check! Let me know if you want references :)

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