Spiced Peaches

Today I had more peaches ripen, only 38 this time! I decided to make Spiced Peaches, because they sounded good.

Spiced Peaches = 6 1/2 pints

6 lbs Peaches (about 2 dozen medium sized peaches)
8 cups sugar
2 ¾ c cider vinegar (5% strength)
4 Cinnamon sticks
4 teaspoons whole cloves
1-1/3 cups water

Dip the fruit in boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds. Remove from the water using a slotted spoon and put into a large bowl or pot of cold water and ice. The skins will easily slide off. Cut out any brown spots and mushy areas. Cut the peaches in half, or quarters or slices. Remove pits.

Put sugar, vinegar and water in a medium sized pot (6 quarts or bigger). and get it heating over medium heat. Stir until sugar is dissolved.

NOTE: The sweetener can be sugar, Splenda, fruit juice (peach juice or white grape juice work well) or none at all! Generally, spiced peaches is a fairly sweet concoction, so you might want to add some sweetening. I usually add about 4 cups of sugar and 4 cups of Splenda, so it's sweet, but not loaded with sugar.

Put the broken cinnamon sticks and whole cloves in a double thickness of cheesecloth, tie the ends together, and add them to the pot. For spicier peaches, use additional cloves and cinnamon sticks. Bring to boiling, cover the pot, and boil for five minutes.Remove the cover and boil for five minutes longer. [I left the spice bag in the syrup until I was finished canning].

Add peaches to hot syrup. Bring syrup to boiling again and simmer peaches for 10 minutes or until tender. [I found that when it boils with the peaches, it foams a lot; I just kept the syrup really hot (on the burner) as I ladled the peaches into jars].

Fill them to within ¼-inch of the top, wipe rims of jars, seat the lid and tighten the ring around them. Put them in the canner and keep them cover with at least 1 inch of water and boiling. if you are at sea level (up to 1,000 ft) boil pint jars for 5 minutes and quart jars for 10 min.

From: http://www.pickyourown.org---they have step-by-step pictures.

***And, what do you fix for dinner after a day of canning?? You reach in your pantry and get the Mongolian Beef that you canned a while back---fix rice, a vegetable and a salad, and you're done!