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I just got back from canning with a friend. I love that we can do this, it makes canning such much less annoying and more fun. We were cracking jokes, talking, or quietly working together while the kids played, alllllll day. It was so wonderful!
But every year I can something I’m like “I should write this down so I’m not scrambling next year” but I always forget. So! I figured I’d share the recipe here, so not only I benefit in the future, but other people can benefit now, during peach season!
I’m not going to go into the details on canning, as the original post does a way better job of it. But I do want to explain that you can’t just trust any old canning recipe. We only use and trust National Center for Home Food Preservation (or nchfp). From there you can do minor deviations of things like spices and herbs and sugars.
So this recipe is shared by Ball. And checks all the boxes on the nchfp. I just want to share my deviations from the recipe.
- 8 lbs of peaches, blanched and peeled, cut into slivers
- 4 cups of apple juice
- 1 cup of honey
- 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 3/4 tsp ground cloves
I follow the general recipe listed here.
Except, my more experienced friend who I canned with helped me to use less waste of the juice and honey mixture by just doing it all in batches.
So while you have a load in the canner, you’re doing your next batch. And she just covers just enough apple juice to keep the peaches from browning. And when you fill the jars, you’re going to put your next batch of peaches in there with the leftover syrup and adding more syrup as needed.
Because the peaches take up quite a bit of space and you don’t need a ton of liquid in your jars.
I definitely don’t aim to share many canning recipes just because it’s such a specific thing and you can’t get it wrong, but I do want to share my specific measurements to the recipe for being frugal but also delicious! We tried this with a lesser honey/water ratio and it wasn’t quite as sweet as we would’ve liked them. This seemed to be just enough but not like we were wasting an entire jug of honey.
I would highly recommend learning how to can. It has been such a blessing to my family. We’re able to eat organic food more cheaply because we either buy it in bulk towards the end of its shelf life, get produce from the organic Amish, or get stuff from our garden, or a friends garden in exchange for some bread!
You can also find many bulk options for buying organic produce here, at azure. It is a monthly “drop” to a location where a truck stops and parks and unloads its contents for that “drop”. You will have to create an account to see where your nearest “drop” is. But it is gaining popularity as an option for bulk shopping, and I can definitely attest to its quality!!
Canning is also a lesson in patience, and, slow living! What else says slowing down like spending an entire day in the kitchen touching every single berry in your jar of jam?
I hope that was helpful! And as always, don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter, or join my Facebook group to be updated on new blog posts