Peach Palooza OR Saving Summer

I love peaches.  I love them so much I bought a half-bushel at the farmers market on Saturday... and went back to buy another half-bushel Sunday.  That's 50 pounds of peaches, sprawled around my dining room.

Really, they aren't sprawled.  They are nestled inside peach crates from 2 years ago, when I bought my peaches by the 4lb box at Trader Joes.  While my love affair with TJ continues, I now restrict my peach purchases to the farmers market.  In bulk.

Inquiring minds want to know what one does with 50lbs of peaches, right?  Here goes, along with hints for efficiency.

Did I mention that I have a new job that I love that has me traveling and busy?   Not as much time for cooking as there once was.  Efficiency is the key!

First things first-- while the peaches are beautiful and begging to be cooked/cut/preserved/frozen, do not yield to immediate temptation.  My peaches, as I brought them home from the market were lovely, but had not reached perfection.  Plan on the fruit aging for a few days in your home until the perfume overtakes you.  In practice, this also allows you to work with 5-10lbs/day, making the task more manageable.

Lay the peaches out on cookies sheets or in shoe boxes in a single (or at most double) layer.  Check them at least daily, removing those that are ripe and ready.  Bring those to the kitchen, wash and proceed as below:

Freezing peach slices:   Slice into 10-12 long slices, then place on a cookie sheet.  When slicing, try cutting across the peach (not down the peach crack).  If the pit is going to split, this method gives you a chance to get it out in one piece, which reduces the odds of having hard peach pits in your final product.

In my freezer, they are solid in 3 hours.  Move to a bag or freezer-safe container, and freeze.  With this method, the slices remain separate for smoothies, frozen yogurt/ice cream and baked goodies.  I use no preservative or acid to maintain color... I've never had a problem with them not being perfect eight months later.

Peach Jam:  Bring a pot of water to a boil.  Prepare a bowl of ice water.  Each must be deep enough to hold your largest ripe peach.  Cut an X in the non-stem end of the peach, then drop into boiling water (I do 4 at a time in boiling water). After 30 seconds, remove peach and slip off skin.  Place naked peach into a bowl.

Here's the cool part... When you have 12 naked peaches in the bowl, crush them with your bare (clean) hands.  Remove pits as you go.  The benefit of crushing the peaches in your hand instead of dicing them on a cutting board is that you are able to capture all the peach juice.  And (bonus!) it doesn't end up all over your table/counter/floor/cat, saving you from the sticky, sugary mess.

Proceed with your peach jam recipe.  12 peaches makes about 8 cups of peach smush, which is enough for 2 batches of most jams.  Your results will vary based on the size of your peaches.  Duh.

For future jam, freeze the crushed peaches in containers in useful sizes...  I add 1/4 cup bottled lemon juice to every 4 cups of peaches, to ensure color.  Most finished recipes call for lemon juice anyway.  I use freezer bags and mason jars.

Peach Puree:  Using above technique, take smushed peaches and treat them to a whirl in the blender.  I add lemon juice as above, and freeze in 2 cups batches for future mixed drinks and ice cream. Bellinis, anyone?

Lots of other things to do with the fresh peaches.  Grilled peaches (slice in half, remove pit, brish with butter and grill face down over low heat) are awesome.  I saw a recipe for broiled peaches-- same as above, but in the oven.  Peach salsa is on my list this year- I'll process the peaches like peach jam, then follow the directions (maybe).

Curried Pickled Cucumbers - Refrigerator Style

I am clearly not a serious blogger.

I took no photos during this pickling adventure because I was so sure it wouldn't work.  After all, I broke sooooooo many rules of pickling!  

For starters.....

1.  I used the wrong cucumbers!

I ordered a double batch of cucumbers in my delivery from Washingtons Green Grocer expecting that they would be small, pickling cucumbers.  It ends up that Diva Cukes are relatively thin skinned, but are huge and have tons of seeds.  Not what you want in a pickler, and not what I *thought* Google told me before I placed my order.  Oops.

2.  I did not boil the pickling liquid.

Heated it in the microwave.  My new favorite way to make it! :-)

3.  Made substitutions in the recipe.

Okay, hardly a news flash there.  I am incapable of following a recipe.  Or, as it seems, checking that I have all the ingredients before I start.

That all said, these are delicious pickles!  

The recipe (mostly) came from Andrea Chesman's  The Pickled Pantry.  The recipe I made is below-- consult her awesome book for the original.  (To start, she uses the correct cucumbers and boils her pickling liquid!)    Also, her curried pickles are water-bath processed so that they are shelf stable, and will last longer.

Because I used the large slicing cucumbers, I was concerned that their high water content will make them mushy before too long.  Water bath canning, and making them shelf-stable, seemed unnecessary.  After tasting these, I'm definitely interested in doing it the 'right' way, in order to make more than one jar at a time.  I think they would also be great cut into spears or thicker slices.

Curried Pickled Cucumbers

4 cups sliced cucumbers (I sliced thinly by hand)

3/4 onion, sliced thin

1 heaping Tbsp coarse sea salt

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup sugar

1 Tbsp raisins

1 1/2 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

Mix cucumber, onions and salt in a bowl, and cover with ice water.  Let soak for 2 hours or so, until the cucumbers taste slightly salty.

At the tail end of the brining time, mix remaining ingredients in a microwaveable bowl and heat until  the sugar is dissolved and the mix is hot-- 1 minute did the job in my microwave.  Set aside.

Drain the cukes and onions, and pack into a clean quart jar.  Pour hot brine over the veggies, then put the lid on the jar and store in the fridge.  Try to wait a day before eating.  

Note:  soaking the cukes in salt water- brining them, really- is a new one to me.  I can't argue with the results!

Peach Jam

It's good to have a plan.

Here's mine for the summer:  preserve lots of fruit, make pickles, move my work project forward, and master another inversion or two in yoga.  I've already got tripod headstand down (or up, as the case may be).

For this blog, I'm going to document the first two.  The work thing is confidential, and the yoga... well, that's my personal obsession.  I'll leave it that way for now.

The fruit and pickles story starts many years ago, in a house far far away.  Well, not that far-- we only lived 2 miles from where we are now.  We bought the house in 1998, and soon after, met the couple who lived across the street with their young daughter.  We always called them our first adult friends-- we owned a house but wow, they had a kid!

We became close friends over the years.  They were always the folks you could count on. She made the curtains for our nursery when I was too pregnant (and inept) to do so.  They helped us clean out the fridge on our last night in the house.   Even when we moved two miles away, they were a phone call away, inviting us to a block party in the old neighborhood, or we were inviting them to a party at our house.

And then.... she got sick.  Pancreatic cancer.  It was not curable, and her time in chemo was awful.  Mercifully, she died just six months after the diagnosis.  It was awful and miserable and unfair... and a year later, it's still awful and miserable and unfair.

As she was declining, I spent time with her, talking about the things we had in common... our families, her daughter, the neighbors, and cooking.  She knew the magic of preserving, and I did not.  At this late date, it was not possible for her to teach me, but her passing reminded me to not delay in spending time with and learning from my friends and loved ones.

Seven weeks after her death, my BFF drove from her home in NY State to teach me how to make jam.  The whole water bath thing was a mystery-- I could make the stuff and store it in fridge or freezer, but it was not shelf stable, and not giftable.   That weekend, she helped me conquer the water bath... we made made plum jam, chipotle pickled carrots and jalapeno green beans.  The experience was wonderful, and the fruits of our labor (pun intended) were delicious!

I used what I learned to make apple butter over the winter, gifting it to teachers and friends. In honor of the 1st anniversary of my friend's death, I made strawberry jam.  The berries were picked from a local farm by me and another BFF along with our kids.  I brought a jar to the family.  It was sad and happy and sweet, all at the same time.

Tonight, I made my first peach jam.  I used this recipe, selected because it calls for minimal sugar and no pectin.  I used 8 good sized CA peaches, 1 cup sugar and 1/4 cup lemon juice-- tried to cut the recipe in half but miscalculated.   These were cling peaches (darn!) and a real pain to pit!  Learned my lesson-- freestone next time.  They rested for 2 hours after slicing (macerating, for those of you in the know); after five minutes on the stove I added 1 tsp fresh minced ginger and 1/2 cinnamon.  I'm proud to say that the latter was my son's idea-- he smelled the peaches as they cooked and made the suggestion.  When the jam cooled he got a taste of the finished product...  he heartily approved, as did I!

Cooking the peaches... it took about 15 minutes for my almost-half recipe.

This eight peach recipe yielded 4 full 8oz jars.  I put 3 through the water bath and put the remaining jar in the fridge.  Finally bought a batch of these reusable lids, so putting the excess in the fridge is easy and I can use the lid another time.

This was a test of the peach jam (low sugar, no pectin) recipe.  When local peaches are ripe, I intend to pick a ton, brush them with maple syrup, then grill them. Some will be eaten hot off the grill, and the rest will be preserved with their smoky sweet flavor intact.  I think both will be heaven.

Stay tuned for more preserving goodness!