Peaches, Peaches, Peaches

I spent last weekend in Southern Oregon with the main purpose of attending "Peach-a-palooza" at Harry & David's Country Village store. Once a year they sell their peaches amazingly cheap. This year they were 20 cents per pound.

My aunt, friend, brother and I all left my mom's house at 5 am to head over.

The peaches were plentiful and after waiting in line til 7 we started filling our totes. We got into a good rhythm and within 15 minutes we had loaded all 20 of our totes, a total of 677 pounds!!

We were home by 9 and ready for the first batch to hit the canners at 10:30 am. It was a LLLLLLLOOOOOONNNNNGGGGG day! My sister in law's baby shower was in the middle of the afternoon and we took the last batch out of the canners at 10:30 pm.

In 8 hours (we spent 4 at the baby shower) we managed to get done 41 quarts of sliced peaches (some preseved with honey, some with coconut sugar and some with organic cane sugar), 51 pints of peach sauce/puree, and 30 pints of jam made. It was crazy! That was only from half the peaches!

Be watching for more posts on recipes to make your own canned sliced peaches, peach sauce and peach jam.

Here is our set up that we used. We had two canners and a water bath set up. It is very strongly advised against for using propane or gas to heat your canner when you are pressuring it because the heat is inconsistent and usually way too many BTUs. We only used the water bath method for all of ours and all three canners were under constant supervision the entire time.

I also use and love my Presto 23 Quart Pressure Canner . It is tall enough to double layer the pints and half pints so you can process a double batch and get twice as much done in the same amount of time. I have used it for pressurizing and water bathing and it works like a champ. If you are a serious canner, this is a must!

Peach-A-Palooza

Harry & David's has an annual Peach-a-palooza event where they sell about a million peaches for uber cheap by the pound. This year we decided to head over and give it a try!

Jonathan, April and I got up at 4:30 and headed over to Medford all squeezed into the front bench seat in my dad's tiny truck, lol!

(I got this picture from the Harry & David facebook page)

They rope part of the parking lot off, fill it with bins and bins of peaches. Then at 7 am they yell, "go!" and everyone runs (yes, runs) to the bins and starts loading like crazy into their boxes, bags, carts, etc. By 7:12 am we were standing in line with two shopping carts and a wagon completely filled! 396 pounds of peaches for just under $60!

Then we had the most hilarious drive home! I think it was partly due to the fact that we were half-asleep still, crammed into a tiny truck, and knew that we had just bought 400 pounds of peaches that we had to head home and do something with. We laughed the entire way home, complete with an impromptu song from Jonathan about the dangers of drinking alcohol. 

My kids were happy to see me (they had just gotten up and were still in jammies eating breakfast) and I immediately set to work on a batch of jam. 

My food processor was a life saver!! 

Gabriella helping me stir the peach puree that was going to be jam. As much as she makes messes when she is "helping" me with things, I would prefer to clean up the mess and explain to her what I am doing so that she is exposed to and grows up learning about these kinds of things. It's important to me to know that she is learning life skills. 

First batch of jam is on! 

(I make all my jams sugar-free with no sweetener. I use Ball Low Sugar/No Sugar Pectin. It works great!)

Here is my recipe for peach jam:

Per Pint you need

2 cups fruit (smooshed or pureed)

1 1/2 T low sugar/no sugar pectin

1/3 cup 100% fruit juice (I like to put orange with peach)

1/2 T lemon juice

Next it was Xander's turn to help mommy. He did a good job handing me peaches that were soaking in the sink when I needed one. 

Matt taste testing the giant bowl of peach sauce that I made. This bowl ended up making 17 pints of peach sauce (like apple sauce) sweetened with just a smidge of organic agave. 

A picture of the sliced peaches and peach jam that Jonathan and April made. 

All in all, after giving away 3 grocery bags full of peaches from my 200 pounds, I made 17 pints of peach sauce, 7 pints of peach rum sauce, 21 cups of peach jam, 6 quarts of sliced frozen peaches, and 14 quarts of sliced canned peaches. We are set on peach products for the year, lol! 

I am so thankful that my parents raised us being exposed to home survival/self-sustaining techniques. I love that making and canning jam is not a huge scary task to me. And I am super thankful for a husband who doesn't mind that I brought home 200 pounds of peaches!!