Canning / JAMboree 2009 (part 1)

What I started with: 50 pounds of 'O Henry' peaches and 56 pounds of 'Friar Plums'



Heres just some of what I've made so far: (In this photo) 9 1/2 pints of plum jam, 3 quarts of brandied peaches, 4 pints of peaches in light syrup, 9 quarts of plums in cinnimon syrup



I played around with raw packing some and hot packing some, didnt notice too much of a difference in how much they float, so to sva etime I may just raw pack them all from now on.



simple plum jam with sugar, lemon juice, and low sugar pectin. My mom will be happy, plum is her favorite jam.


Was playing around with plums and noticed something cool, when I put the first batch of plum halves to 'poach' on the syrup the skins slipped off showing off this beautiful yellow flesh, but as I did more batches of plums the syrup got darker and darker from the plum skins (going left to right in this photo) , to the point that the fruit was taking on the red color from the syrup even before the skins slipped off. In the end I just raw packed some plums skins and all in the dark red syrup, resulting on the really dark jars on the far right.


Last night I made 10 1/2 pints of Peach Melba Jam ( peach/raspberry) and 10 1/2 pints of a plum sauce flavored with orange juice and cardamon. Its sweet, but with a good tang from the orange and the hint of spice, good as a soft fruit spread, a pancake syrup or if I add some more spice and ginger possibly a good asian plum sauce. I also took some of my frozen raspberries form our picking trip to Riley's farm and have them soaking in a quart of Brandy- a little experiment in preserving fruit with alcohol. I forgot to take photos of those.

Even after all of that canning and jamming, giving fruit to the kids as snacks, and gifting some to my mom and dad, I still have a 25 pound box each of fruit. And I'm almost out of jars...I'm down to 1 dozen each of 1/2 pints and pint jars. I guess next I'll have to try my hand at freezing fruit pies in plastic lined pie tins to have pies ready to go later on this year. After that if I still have ziplocks I may resort to sugarpacking/freezing whatever fruit is left before it goes bad. Its ripe but still firm thankfully, I dont want to have mushy fruit left to freeze.