Peach Preserves

It's the end of peach season here, and I'm loving it. There is something so great about eating peaches still warm from the sun. You can't get fresh peaches like that in stores! I find food so much more satisfying when it is tree ripened.

Because of the copious amounts of fresh peaches and the fact that HB's corn allergy prevents him from eating any jams or jellies from the store, we decided to make peach preserves. I'd never preserved anything before, but there was this great recipe in Bon Appetit this month, and I thought I'd give it a shot.

When we went peach picking on Saturday, there wasn't a lot of good ones left. You can tell it was the end of the season and the trees are bare and most the fruit on the trees was either rotting or unripe. We got about 15 pounds of peaches that we thought were good enough to make preserves, and went home.

The next day when I went to look at the peaches, I found most of them a little beat up. HB and I cut them up and peeled them, cutting away all the slightly bruised parts. This left us with about 10 pounds of peaches, enough for two batches of preserves.

Because we cut them up and peeled them already, we skipped the first step of the recipe. After that we followed it pretty closely. I did cook the preserves for an additional five minutes because all the reviews online said that they were still pretty drippy after the recommended 15-20 min.

This recipe produces a little over 3 pints instead of the two they say.

The recipe is great! I was worried I'd screw up the canning process because I'd never done it, but it was pretty easy. The peaches are delicious - the earl grey isn't too overwhelming and just adds a little bit of flavor. We left the peach chunks pretty big, and they taste as fresh as the day we picked them. I'll definitely be doing this recipe again next year.