Friday, August 17, 2012

Peaches in Vanilla Syrup

Yesterday during nap time I canned four quarts (and a pint, since I guess I improperly weighed my peaches) of summer peaches in vanilla syrup from the book Canning for a New Generation by Lianna Krissoff. I've made a few things from this book, mostly jams. I love this book. Lianna Krissoff has made the canning steps easy to understand, and her recipes are wonderful. She warned me to make sure that they were freestone peaches. She even suggested that I go out to the car to cut one open to make sure before I bought a ton of them. I did not listen. I have two tiny kids and two weeks worth of groceries in my cart. I am not going to purchase one peach to see if the pit comes out with little coaxing. Luckily, they were mostly freestone and I only had to struggle with pitting a few of them. That was enough, though. Pitting cling stone fruit is a pain. I'm hoping to crack a few of these open to top plain yogurt or add a few to a fruit salad. Let me warn you, though - I started during nap time but Wild Child (The Older) woke up right was I was about to put these in the water bath. It is much more difficult to can with a small child underfoot, and I do not recommend it. I had to kick him out of the kitchen for 15 minutes so I could finish up, since all that hot water and glass jar business can be dangerous for little fingers.