A Plethora of Perfectly Palate Pleasing Peaches

64 lbs of peaches. That's what I had to work with this morning. It made for a daunting but delicious task. So with a day off of work for Labor Day, I rolled up my sleeves -- or in this case busted out the extra fans cause I knew it was going to be steamy -- and got to work.
The set-up...It pays to be organized.











I had to peel all the peaches. First you cut an "x" in the bottom of each peach. Then you boil them for about 3-4 minutes.











Then you put the peach in to an ice bath.











After that, the skin just slips right off of them.











I love the vibrant color of the peeled peaches. Next, to make the jam, I mashed them all up.












The mashed up fruit went into a pot with cinnamon, pectin, lemon juice, and more sugar than any human should consume in a lifetime.












Then it all got boiled together for a little while. After it was done cooking, I poured the jam into sterilized jars.

















Then I sealed them up with a steam bath. I used my Grandma Schaub's steamer. Rather than sealing the jars by putting them into boiling water, there is this nifty steamer thing that sits on your burner. It does the exact same job but with 1/4 the amount of water. You can kind of see it in the right side of this picture (it's the silver dome). I've already put dibs on it.












So here is the final fruits of my labor. Today I made....
Peach-Cinnamon Jam

















Sinfully sweet peach syrup. Can you just imagine this luscious syrup on some peacan waffles, or peach pancakes with cool-whip or poured over vanilla ice cream. The possibilities are endless!

















We also made 3 Peach pies, and peachsauce (like cinnamon applesauce only with peaches). I also ended up freezing a couple gallon bags of just plain sliced peaches and even left a half of flat of peaches alone, for consumption all by themselves. It all turned out absolutely perfect. I love peaches. And I'll be spreading the joy in the next few days.

I'll post the recipes on my food blog....later.

PS -- A HUGE thank you goes out to Susan who helped me peel, photograph, and pie.