Peaches

Chris and I had a very busy and productive last weekend (hopefully!) before the baby comes. I did laundry, swept and mopped; Chris organized the pantry and cleaned the bathtubs. And, of course, this was a weekend for one of my favorite hobbies: canning!

Last Sunday, Chris and I went to the Peach & Wine Festival at Prospect Hill Orchard which is just down the road from us, and pick loads of peaches and nectarines. They spent this week finishing ripening and yesterday I made pie (2!), jam, and canned peaches. Yum!

The pies (peach-blueberry with a “special” ingredient) turned out great. I took one up to Margarete’s house because we never made good on the ice cream (we’re such slackers) and kept one for ourselves.Beautiful, right?

And home-canned peaches will be so delicious this winter. I almost want to crack open a jar now…

The only thing that might be better than the pie is the jam. This was the first year I tried to make peach jelly and I’m really thrilled with the results – the color especially. It completely makes up for how lame and watery this year’s cherries were.

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This evening I made 3 quarts and 4 pints of dill pickles for Chris with just over 5 lbs of cucumbers we had in the fridge (ah, the joys of a CSA). I’ll have to try and remember to take a picture and add it tomorrow. Now he just has to wait as patiently as possible for the next 4-6 weeks while they turn from cucumbers to pickles.

This is probably the last canning I’ll do until after the baby comes. Then we’ll get into apple season and, if I can manage, I want to try to do something with pears this year.