Gonna can a lot of peaches, more like. I bought almost a half bushel at the market yesterday, just for canning. Peaches are the only thing I don't like to can. Cutting them up is a pain, even when they're freestone it seems like only about half separate easily. Peeling them sucks (I've tried dipping them in boiling water, which didn't work for me, so I'm stuck peeling by hand). They're slimy and difficult to handle. And they taste SO much better than store-bought that I can't make myself eat anything else.
My mom helped me yesterday, for which I am eternally grateful. She seems to have better luck peeling than I do, and I did better with cutting them up, so we made a good team. I knew I only wanted to can 12 pints, so we stopped about 2/3 of the way through the basket so we wouldn't have too much. I got 7 pints out of the first batch, so I had to finish up with the rest this morning. I got 11 pints total, with 3 peaches leftover to eat. With peaches a little smaller than my fist, I seem to use about 4 peaches per pint, meaning that we only peeled and cut up maybe 4 dozen. It felt like a LOT more. Oh well. I'm done now, and I'll have yummy tasting peaches to eat all winter!
As far as cost goes... Meijer sells a case of peaches (12 - 15 oz cans) for $16.76, or $1.40 per can. I paid $10 for my almost-half-bushel and would have gotten 12 pints if I hadn't saved some to eat. That's $0.83 per can. If you add in the pain-in-the-ass factor, I'm sure mine are more expensive, but they are much firmer and tastier, so I suppose it's worth it.
Next up is tomato sauce, then applesauce and apple butter. I'm considering potatoes, too.
1 comment:
I can peaches every other year. Thank heaven this is an off year. I have the same feelings toward them as you do.
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