This is what my table looked like when we brought the blue berries home. And that isn't all of them. Or all of the peaches, either. This is just the last of the peaches. We kinda have a fruit glut.
I think we'll live, though.
I'll probably have nightmares about peaches and blueberries and some sort of alien from Dr Who. I heart Dr. Who. I wonder if they've done peach and blueberry aliens on Dr. Who. Maybe I should write and suggest it.
Or maybe I should just stick to jam.
OK.
I'd read on Food in Jars about a strawberry vanilla jam recipe, but I don't have strawberries and I'm still on that what-new-exciting-thing-can-I-do-with-peach-jam kick.
And I thought that peach vanilla jam sounded kinda good.
Actually, it sounded really good. Really, really good.
Have I told you how much I love vanilla? I'm sure I have. I love vanilla. Really love vanilla.
So I made some Peach Vanilla Jam:
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| Mashing the peaches and vanilla during cooking |
1 Cup water
4 Cups peaches, cut up
3 Tablespoons Ball pectin [or 1 pkg]
2 vanilla beans
2 Cups sugar
Put the water and peaches and pectin in a heavy pot and start cooking.
Cut the vanilla beans lengthwise and scrape out the seeds with a spoon. [Just open up the bean, hold it over the pot, start anywhere and scrape, scrape, scrape.] That's the stuff in the pic that looks like pepper.
It's not pepper, it's vanilla bean seeds. They smell great. My hands still smell good. I heart vanilla.
Cook and mash until you get the consistency you want. When you're done mashing, stir frequently until you reach a hard boil. Hold the hard boil for 1 minute.
Ladle into jars. Makes two and a half pints. Process for canning. [Pints and jelly jars 10 minutes].
Notes: Notice that in the pic, some of the jars are pink. That's because I was kind of weirded out by the black specs in the yellow jam in the first couple of jars.
Since I had an abundance, [an abundance! I tell you], of blueberries, I threw 8 blueberries into the jam at the last minute just for the color. I didn't want blueberry flavor, just the color.
And I like that color! A lot! And it hides the black specs. I'd do it again.
Raspberries would have worked, too. Next time I might try them instead. [Update: I tried blackberries, but they broke apart and didn't color as well. Stick with blueberries.]