Preserving Food -- How to Jar Peaches for the Winter

I would love to do marinara, tomatoes, salsa, green sauce. How is the texture of meats? Would you mostly need to use them in stews/soup, maybe Something like enchilada base? Since I won’t be traveling anytime soon, sounds like I might look into this.

agreed, if you're going to can proteins you need a pressure canner, else you risk botulism.. boiling water at standard pressure doesn't get hot enough.

apples are a lot more work than peaches.
first, you must cut and core the apples.
if you're like me and pick wild apples, there are a lot of imperfections and worm damage to cut away.
next, you must peel the apples, and that is tedious work.
then you can stew the high-graded apple chunks, i find brown sugar works best for this, along with a teaspoon of salt. cinnamon adds a nice kick.

i do freeze some things but not too much.. the power goes out in my neck of the woods several times during the winter, sometimes for longer than 24 hours. i can keep jars from freezing with gas/wood heat, but keeping stuff frozen without electricity can be challenging.

..until you can't.

Thanks for the mini lesson

agreed!

i find during the winter i can feel a bit melancholy due to the lack of sunshine during those short, cloudy days.

opening a jar of peaches is like eating some stored sunshine and gives my spirits a lift.

Last Edited by OpenHeartMonk on 09/20/2020 12:49 PM

happy to hear you enjoyed it, thank-you for watching!

Peaches in the dehydrator are nice too. Just wash, slice thin, and lay in the trays. Dry til leathery.
If you want them brighter yellow, dip slices in a lemon juice solution (1Tbsp lemon juice to 2c water) before putting on trays.

Can be eaten straight as a snack. I have to hide them from the kids and ration them, or cut into pieces and added to muffins, or rehydrated and put into pancakes or fruit smoothies

I also like to can some of ours in a light brown sugar syrup with enough headroom to add 1/4 c. good dark rum right before sealing the jars. Drunken peaches over ice cream or pound cake? Soooo good.

I like green beans best frozen anyway, but if you don't have a pressure canner you can still do dilly beans.

rum peaches?! i gotta try this!

.

Last Edited by Tangy on 09/20/2020 02:28 PM

a big thank-you to the GLP community for your kind support.

i learned some new things myself in this topic/thread.

wishing you well!

I've canned for years. I still do some bounty from my garden. But for the most part I am freeze-drying now. It is a lot less work in lifting and working with heavy pots and pans.

Not a single apricot this year and I have two trees. The peach tree went ballistic with huge and hefty peaches. I have been putting them thru the H R freeze dryer for a week. The results are fabulous and delicious. I package them in the Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers.

They are sweet and crunchy in a cheese-puff kind of way. I figure they will out last me.

I have always worried a bit about glass jars and stacking and earthquakes. I put socks on every other jar to cushion any blow. These Mylar bags will survive an earthquake just fine. I pack them tight in Depends boxes I collect from "old friends", they are stout boxes that hold lots of assorted bags and can stack high with ease.

It is a lot easier for things like broccoli. I gather it every few days, wash it and pop it in the dryer. I used to freeze it, but it was funky when it defrosted. And although I have solar generators, I worried a freezer might go bad and I would loose all the garden produce. Now little batches of this and that let nothing get wasted. This has been a great year for broccoli. It just keeps going to florets by the dozen.

How long do canned items last on a shelf?

the ones bought fresh or picked fresh.. I used to have a nectarine tree for example do not even compare to the store bought ones... they are wonderful. I still have some canned from several years ago before the tree died.

forever unless the seal gets broken.

OP your video was thorough and instructive .

The only thing I got confused with is how you put on one kind of kid and then switched to canning lids - maybe to keep bugs out while preparing lids?

The only thing Inwould add is anshot of wiping the jar lids with white vinegar on a paper towel after filling so no honey or syrup keeps the lids from sealing. An important step.

There are groups on FB you can join to learn if anyone is interested.

The “B” word will get you banned (LOL- Botulism)

If you see it in a store we can find directions to do it safely at home.

It is NOT NECESSARILY CHEAPER

I dedicated myself to it as a SKILL on a list of things I thought people
Should know- and we enjoy giving homemade gifts to inspire others.

We could literally preserve some of almost any food for later consumption - that is food security . You could forage and preserve apples -
Meats- mushrooms - vegetables - without worry and better tasting .

I like knowing what’s in my food

Logged me out so I can’t fix typos

Good video OP

great question, i do talk about that in the video.

as long as the jar stays sealed, at least one year is good.
some of my jars last two years and they are still good.
even after three years, they have been ok.

i've only had one jar last four years (my kids usually devour them all), and that jar had an oxidation stain down the side on the inside of the jar. the seal was still good, but i didn't trust it, and gave it to the compost.

those are some interesting preservation techniques there, Catmandoo.

i share concerns about earthquakes.. all my jars are stored on bottom shelves.

hello, thank-you for watching!

yes, i put the old lids on temporarily to keep fruit flies and other foreign objects from getting into the jars before i put on the final lids.

there is a shot in that video where i wipe down the jar rims before applying the final lids, and i agree that is a very important step.

i like knowing what's in my food too, and making delicious things to eat during those cold, dreary winter months!

Wonderful thread. Thanks OP.

you are most welcome =)

just because it's saturday night, you get this:

this is a quick excerpt from the longer peaches canning video, easy to miss since that video is so long, so i chopped it out to a separate movie.