Peach Jam with Vanilla and Lemon

I will warn you that I am not getting sufficient sleep as of late.  If I read a little… you know… crazy, that’s why.

Good progress on the book over the last couple of days, I think.  Today, I had an exchange with an old friend from high school who, unbeknownst to me, is an acquisitions editor at a publisher.  Small world.  Anyway, I don’t think my book is their cup of tea, but I’ll be very interested in his opinion on the subject.  It also turns out that we went to the same university after high school.  I believe my breakfast drink of choice at the time was the Long Island Ice Tea.  Yeah… things are a little fuzzy.

Speaking of fuzzy… PEACHES!  Hey-o!

I’ve told you about my beloved peach tree?  The one with the bacterial canker that I keep hoping is something else?  Well, it actually put out a fair number of peaches this year.  Granted, a lot of them fell off and got the ground cooties, but I managed to pick a basketful yesterday.  They’re not all the prettiest specimins, but they taste good, and once you peel them and cut them up, well:

They Look Like Peaches

I decided to make a peach cobbler with 3-4 cups and make jam with the remaining 12 cups.  I’m not going to give you the cobbler recipe because… well, it didn’t exactly “suck” per se, vis-a-vis peachy goodness, but it was not my best work.

The jam, though, was a winner.  So, here ya go:

Vanilla Peach Jam with Lemon

12 c. peaches sliced, peeled, and pitted (obviously)
5 c. sugar (Maybe less, maybe more, but I traded thickness for flavor, more sugar likely gets you more solid jam, but then tastes like… sugar.)
The juice and zest of one lemon.
1 T. vanilla

Err… put stuff in pan.  Cook stuff.  Stir often so it doesn’t stick.  Cook more.  Cook more.  Etc.

Theoretically, you could add pectin and shortcut the cooking, but I don’t really like pectin that much.  Firstly, see the thing about sugar.  Pectin needs a lot of sugar.  Besides, if you cook the peaches long enough, they’ll gel up on their own.  I test mine by keeping some little plates in the freezer and spooning some on now and then to see if it thickens.

When you’re happy with it, scoop it into hot jars and process in boiling water for… I dunno… 6.5 minutes?

I'm Running Out of Jars

And there you go, peach jam and/or sauce.  My 6 year old had it on ice cream tonight and said it gave him an explosion of flavor.

That’s good enough for me.