Elaeagnus [Autumn Olive] Peach Jam

As I mentioned in my last post, it's elaeagnus season. [The common name is autumn olive, but there is nothing remotely olive-y about these.]  Pick them when they are dark red and softening up.  They should fall off the clusters easily when they are ripe.

This year I realized that elaeagnus are really the hoosier equivalent of cranberries in tartness and that they'd probably be pretty darn good in mixed fruit jams, just like cranberry juice is beloved in mixed fruit juices.   I decided to start there.

It's easy to find cran-apple and cran-raspberry juice mixes at the store, so I put those combinations on my Mixed Fruit Elaeagnus Jam To Make list right away.  Then I saw a recipe for Cranberry Peach Jam somewhere [sorry, can't remember where...!] and thought I should try that one, too. 

And I did.   And it was marvelous.   The elaeagnus berries have a sort of spicy undertone and the finished jam has the flavor of a gently spiced peach jam with the extra oomph of the tart elaeagnus, too.   We loved it!

I mixed the elaeagnus half and half with the other fruit - you can adjust proportions as you wish.   One thing to remember - don't skimp on the sugar with elaeagnus.  It's tart!   I have found that using equal parts sugar and elaeagnus makes for an excellent jam.  I also add in half as much sugar as extra fruit for a jam that is sweet without being candy.   Here's what I did for the Elaeagnus Peach Jam.  

Elaeagnus [Autumn olive] Peach Jam
www.rurification.com

2 cups elaeagnus [autumn olive] pulp [for directions on getting the pulp, see this post]
2 cups chopped peaches
3 tablespoons low sugar pectin
3 cups sugar 

Combine elaeagnus, peaches and pectin in a large pot. Bring to a hard boil [one that you can't stir down.] Boil one minute, stirring constantly.   Add sugar and stir well.  Bring to hard boil again stirring constantly.  Boil one minute.   Ladle into jars and cover with clean lids and rings.  Process for canning.

This jam is very acidic and is very safe for canning.  Makes about 5 cups.

Stay tuned for the recipes for Elaeagnus Apple Jam and Elaeagnus Raspberry Jam later this week.

Peaches, Peaches

Peaches!   Yay!    We got our first bushel from Freedom Country Store in Worthington, Indiana and they are delicious!    It's been a week of peach dumplings, chutney, pies and loads and loads of peels and pits.  

Peaches can be a lot of work.    I used a vegetable peeler to get the skins off because this batch of peaches was still pretty firm.   Worked brilliantly!

I made three batches of my favorite Peach Chutney. I LOVE that stuff.   Love it.

Really, really love it.  

Really.

I still had loads and loads of peaches cut up, so I popped them in small ziplock bags, 2 cups each, and stacked them up in the freezer.   One bag is the perfect size for smoothies and two bags is perfect for pies. 

What are your favorite peach recipes?  

Perma-Flo Experiment #3: Peach Plum Raspberry Pie Filling

The pie filling experiments with Perma Flo continue.    Both because I'm curious about this stuff and more than a little OCD. 

That's CDO for you guys who like to see things alphabetized.

Experiment 1 is here.  Good, but gloopy.
Experiment 2 is here.  Runny.

In this batch of pie filling I decided to see what would happen if I macerated the fruit with sugar overnight to bring out the juices so I wouldn't have to add any extra water.

We dumped enough fruit [4 cups per pie] for 3 pies in a big bowl with 3/4 cup sugar per pie [2 1/4 cups total] and let it sit overnight.  The next day the juices were flowing and I put the fruit-sugar mix in the pot and heated it to boiling.   Then I added 1/4 cup Perma Flo per pie [3/4 cup total] and stirred like crazy.   As soon as it got thick I turned off the heat.   It made beautiful pie filling at just the right consistency. 

One problem:   As soon as you add the dry Perma Flo, it clumps.   That makes it hard to stir in completely and in the finished pie, you get the occasional gloopy gluey lump.   It's not a deal breaker, but surely there's a better way.

Stay tuned for Experiment #4.  

Canning Peaches

Since the peaches are so doggoned gorgeous this year, I decided that the one bushel we'd cut up for the freezer wasn't enough.   So I got another bushel.

Problem:  No room in the freezer. Plus, freezers are sort of dependent on a power supply.   Our power supply is vulnerable to storms and such, so I thought it would be a good idea to can this bushel of peaches in jars.  That way, we'd know we'd have them in a power outage.   Unless the outage is caused by an earthquake, which might tumble them off shelves and break them.    I decided not to think about that. 

Hey, I'm all about denial.  

It only took a couple of hours for three of us to peel and cut them in half and stuff them in the jars.  We decided to can them in water and not add the extra sugar in a syrup.   Rumor has it that the syrup makes for really attractive canned peaches, but these are for food, not the county fair.  

We made a solution of ascorbic acid and citric acid to put on them to keep them from browning and that's the water that we filled the jars with.  Here's how we made the anti-browning solution. 

Anti-Browning Solution for canned fruit
www.rurification.com

6 tablets vitamin C, crushed
1 tsp citric acid
1 gallon hot water

Crush vitamin tablets with the back of a spoon.   Mix vitamin C and citric acid in the water.  Fill jars with peaches.  Ladle solution over peaches.  Cap and process.

We processed the peaches for 30 minutes in a boiling water canner.   

We got 25 quarts of peaches from the bushel.  One jar broke in the canner [and can I just say that I HATE that?  Seriously!   They're Designed To Handle Boiling Water.  Hello!  Brand new wide mouth jar, too.  Gee, thanks, Ball.] 

It takes a LOT longer to actually process the jars for canning than it did to fill the jars with the peaches and get them ready.   Be patient.   Plan on having something else to do close by while you're keeping an eye on things.

Where to get citric acid?   We got ours at Freedom Country Store just north of Worthington on Hwy 231.   You might be able to find some at your local drug store, Walmart, etc.  

Cherry Pie Filling Experiments with Perma Flo

My blackberry pie filling [see yesterday's post] was so easy and so successful that I immediately started making plans to use up some of the fruit in the freezer in shelf stable canned pie filling.   Seriously, the freezer was so full the kids were starting to threaten me any time I talked about getting more fresh fruit.

Mom.  MOM!  There's no room in the freezer.

NO ROOM.   None.   It's full to bursting.   Really.

So I told them to pull out 4 bags of cherries and I'd make cherry pie filling with a gallon of cherries I just got from Freedom Country Store the same way I'd made pie filling with a gallon of blackberries.

I did exactly the same thing only used twice as much sugar since they were sour cherries.  It didn't go as well as I thought.

Cherry Pie Filling Syrup with Perma Flo
www.rurification.com

1 gallon frozen cherries
3 quarts water
1 cup rounded Perma Flo
6 cups sugar  

Step 1.  Bring the liquid to a boil.   I put 3 quarts of water in a pot and 1 quart of the cherries and brought that to a boil.   I mashed the cherries while I was at it to release the juices.

Step 2.  Whisk in the Perma Flo.   I used 1/4 cup per quart of fruit.   1 gallon of cherries needed 1 cup of Perma Flo. I rounded the cup. 

Step 3.  Stir until it starts to thicken.  It took a few minutes.

Step 4.  Add fruit [the rest of the gallon of cherries], sugar [6 cups] and return to boil.

Step 5.  Put in clean jars, wipe rims, top with clean lids and rings.

Step 6.  Process jars for 30 minutes.  The NCHFP recommends water bath canning.


I ended up with 7 quarts of thin pie filling.

In jars that were only 1/2 full of cherries.

Soooo, this batch of pie filling is not exactly my idea of a paragon of success.   [I used paragon to describe pie filling again.  How. Cool. Is. That?]

Apparently there is a lot more juice in frozen cherries than there is in fresh blackberries. I figured I'd have to open the jars and monkey with it to get it thicker, but I didn't want to because those cherries had clearly had enough.  Plus, it was hot.   Plus, I just didn't want to monkey with it any more.

Once the jars cooled, they thickened up just enough to be a nice syrup and I realized that sour cherry syrup is a great thing to have.

We served it over chocolate cake and ice cream.   To. Die. For.

Then the next day, I cut up 4 nice big fresh peaches into a greased casserole dish and poured a quart of the cherry syrup-pie-filling-goo over them and topped it with some fruit crisp topping and baked it all until brown and bubbling.

We had that for breakfast.  Because I'm the best mom in the world.  They told me so. 

So, proceeding with a positive attitude and a little creativity, I was able to snatch culinary victory out of the jaws of certain food preservation defeat.    Hah!

My point is, don't despair when your experiments turn out weird.  If they taste good [and this will!] and give you an opportunity to discover something new that you and your family will love.

In the meantime, if you want to actually make regular thick cherry pie filling with Perma Flo this is what I'd do:

Cherry Pie Filling with Perma Flo - the hypothetical version
www.rurification.com

1 gallon frozen cherries
1 quart water
1 rounded cup Perma Flo
6 cups sugar  

Step 1.  Bring the liquid to a boil. If you defrost the cherries completely before you start, then just use that juice and skip the water.

Step 2.  Whisk in the Perma Flo. 

Step 3.  Stir until it starts to thicken.  It takes a few minutes.

Step 4.  Add fruit and sugar and return to boil.

Step 5.  Put in clean jars, wipe rims, top with clean lids and rings.

Step 6.  Process jars for 30 minutes.  The NCHFP recommends water bath canning.

Yield:  5 quarts of cherry pie filling. Ish.

Peach Pie Filling

Last year I made peach pie filling in a jar.   The kind that all I had to do was open it up and pour it in a pie crust and bake.  

I love that kind.

It was delicious.  Here's the link.

So this year, I decided to make some more with our peach bounty.

Only I wanted to do something a little different than just nutmeg.

So I added some red raspberries and vanilla.

Raptures.

I made a big batch so I'd have several bottles.    I'm so glad I did.

Peach Raspberry Vanilla Pie Filling

• 16 cups chopped peaches
• 2 cups raspberries
• 4 Tablespoons lemon juice
• 4 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup corn starch
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 4 Tablespoons vanilla

Mix it all together and bring to a boil.   It'll get clear when the corn starch does it's thing.   Yield 4 quarts.  Process for canning 20 minutes.

Note:   The cornstarch will do just fine in this pie filling for 6 months.   After that it starts to separate a bit.   Make sure you keep these at the front of the cupboard so you remember to use them first.

Bon apetit!     [Is that how you spell that?]

Peach Raspberry Vanilla Jam

In addition to all the spiced peach jams I made, I wanted something with a little less ping.

I wanted pink instead of ping. 

There are a couple of ways to make peach jam pink.

1.  You can leave the skins on when you cook it, but my kids hate the whole fruit skin thing.  [And I totally roll my eyes whenever it comes up because they Really. Care. Mom.]  So I'd have to get the skins out, or run the whole thing through a sieve, but that seemed like a lot of extra work.   I don't need more work.

2.  You can add food coloring.    Nope.   I don't think so.

3.  You can add red raspberries.  Oh. Yes.

We went with #3.   It's pink AND it combines two lovely flavors.

And then we added vanilla.

Because I totally heart vanilla. 

I might have said that before.

And this is how it went:

Peach Raspberry Vanilla Jam

• 3 cups peaches
• 2 cups red raspberries
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/3 cup Dutch Jell All Natural Lite pectin  OR  3 Tablespoons Ball Low Sugar Pectin
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 Tablespoons vanilla.

Mix the peaches, raspberries, lemon juice and pectin in a large pot.   Bring to hard rolling boil, stirring constantly.  Boil hard for 1 minute.    Add sugar and vanilla.  Stir well and bring back to hard rolling boil, stirring constantly.   Boil hard for 1 minute.   Ladle into jars and process 10 minutes for canning.  Yield 3 pints.

Note:  You can easily make vanilla extract yourself.   Try it. You'll never go back.

Spiced Peaches, Part 3: Peach Maple Cardamom Jam

This is the third installment of Not Your Grandma's Spiced Peaches.

This Peach Maple Cardamom Jam is one of those rare creations in life where the whole is much, much more incredible than the sum of the parts - even if those parts are pretty darned amazing to start with.
   
Food of the Gods.

Plus!  I didn't use white sugar - only our homemade maple syrup.   Bonus points!  

This is a jam that is fabulous on biscuits, but would be phenomenal as a filling in cakes or as an ice cream topping when you want something that's a bit more exotic than plain peach.

Peach Maple Cardamom Jam

• 3 cups chopped peaches
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/3 cup Dutch Jell All Natural Lite pectin  [or  3 Tablespoons Ball Low Sugar Pectin]
• 1 1/2 cups maple syrup
• 1/4 tsp cardamom

Mix the peaches lemon juice and pectin in a large pot.   Bring to hard rolling boil, stirring constantly.  Boil hard for 1 minute.    Add maple syrup and cardamom.  Stir well and bring back to hard rolling boil, stirring constantly.   Boil hard for 1 minute.   Ladle into jars and process 10 minutes for canning.  Yield 3 pints. 

Note:  I picked up the Dutch Jell All Natural Lite pectin at my local Amish store [Freedom Country Store in Freedom, Indiana].   I like that it comes in bulk.   It gels very well - almost too well.   I'm going to use it with other fruit and let you know how I feel about it later in the season.

Spiced Peaches, Part 2: Peach Chai Jam

Welcome to the second installment of Not Your Grandma's Spiced Peaches.

I've been wanting to use my Chai brew in jam for a while, and peaches were first on my list to use it with.  I figured it would be a nice variation of the traditional spiced peaches.    I was so right. 

It was so good, that now I'm thinking I might try it with plums. 

Also, I might try it with blueberries.

In fact, I might try it with everything.  

Peach Chai Jam has a mellower and more complicated flavor than the typical clove and cinnamon spiced peaches that I'm used to.  This jam is definitely one we're going to put on the 'Must Have in the Pantry' list.


Peach Chai Jam

• 4 cups peaches
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 cup Robin's Caffeine Free Chai Brew
• 3 Tablespoons Ball Low Sugar Pectin
• 2 cups sugar

Mix the peaches lemon juice, chai brew and pectin in a large pot.   Bring to hard rolling boil, stirring constantly.  Boil hard for 1 minute.    Add sugar.  Stir well and bring back to hard rolling boil, stirring constantly.   Boil hard for 1 minute.   Ladle into jars and process 10 minutes for canning.  Yield 3 pints

Note:  The Chai Brew is just the spicy base that I use to make chai.  Follow the link above to the recipe.   Don't add the milk to the jam, just the concentrated spicy brew.   And yes, you can leave the sugar out.

Not Your Grandma's Spiced Peaches, Part 1: Ginger Peach Jam

It's peach season here.

For the past couple of years we've had access to the peaches on a friend's tree.  This means that we spend days and days peeling and pitting peaches.

And then we spend months and months enjoying peaches in smoothies, pies, jams, etc.

God bless generous friends with peach trees!  Thank you!!

With all those peaches, I decided to do some experimenting with spices in my peach jams this year and I came up with some really great recipes.

Really.  Great.

As in - the finished products are likely to cause you to break out in the singing of spontaneous Halleluias.  I'm totally not kidding.   

These are not your grandma's spiced peaches.

This is what I made:

• Ginger Peach Jam
• Peach Chai Jam
• Peach Maple Cardamom Jam

So, over the next few days, I'll give you the details.

The delicious, mouth-watering, halleluia inspiring details.  

I'll start here with the simplest of the spiced jams.  Ginger Peach Jam is made with chopped candied ginger.  If you make the candied ginger yourself, then you can use your ginger sugar for this jam.    It's really good!   So good, that you just might consider trying to make some.

Ginger Peach Jam

• 4 cups peaches
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/3 cup Dutch Jell All Natural Lite Pectin OR 3 Tablespoons Ball Low Sugar Pectin
• 1/3 cup chopped crystallized ginger
• 1 cup ginger sugar
• 1 cup white sugar

Mix the peaches lemon juice and pectin in a large pot.   Bring to hard rolling boil, stirring constantly.  Boil hard for 1 minute.    Add sugars and ginger.  Stir well and bring back to hard rolling boil, stirring constantly.   Boil hard for 1 minute.   Ladle into jars and process 10 minutes for canning.  Yield ~3 pints

Note:  If you don't make your own crystallized ginger, try to get it from a bulk store and then make sure you collect about a cup's worth of the sugar that falls off the ginger and collects in the bottom of the bin.   If you don't have access to ginger sugar, don't worry about it.   Use 2 cups of plain white sugar.  It'll still be great.

Peach Chutney

When I have an abundance of something hanging around the house waiting to be 'done with' so we can eat it through the winter, I get brave.

I cook things that normally I wouldn't cook for fear I'd screw it up. Or that no one would like it. Or something like that.

But when you have a million peaches sitting around, you get desperate for something interesting to do with them. Let's face it, you can only eat so much peach jam before it gets to be no fun anymore.

Over at  Food in Jars, I heard about a book by Stephen Palmer Dowdney called Putting Up.  Though the Amazon reviews were mixed, I thought it was worth a look see at the library and I was glad to see they had it when I looked.

It's full of interesting recipes!  I looked for recipes for peaches and sure enough, he had a recipe for Peach Chutney that sounded very good and very doable.

I revised the recipe some to fit my needs.   He makes LARGE quantities and measures in pounds.   I wanted a few jars and I don't have a kitchen scale.    I used measuring cups.  Also, I needed to dial down the spicy heat.   Quite a bit.

It worked fine.  I can't wait to throw a jar of this in the slow cooker with a pork roast. [UPDATE:  We did throw a pint of this in the slow cooker with a pork roast and it was fabulous!  Brown the roast first.   Put it in the pot, pour the chutney over it.  Cook on low until it falls apart.]

Here's the recipe.

Peach Chutney

• 8 Cups peach pieces
• 2 T mustard seeds
• 1 tsp - T red pepper flakes
• 3 Cups sugar
• 1/2 Cup white wine vinegar [I used my own homemade white wine vinegar and it was fabu!]
• 1/4 Cup crystallized ginger, chopped up [That's a handful of ginger pieces, if you don't want to cram it into a cup measure.]
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3/4 Cup raisins [I like golden raisins in this.]

Combine ingredients and cook down.   When the temp gets above 212 degrees, it's done.  Or you can skip the temp watching and cook it until enough liquid boils off that you can drag a spoon across the bottom of the pan and it leaves a dry place for a second before the juices flow again.   I cooked my first batch long because I got busy with something else and it cooked down a bunch.  I got three pints out of it.   I cooked my second batch shorter and watched the temp.   I stopped at 212 degrees, but it was much wetter than a chutney usually is.   I didn't care.   I canned it wet anyway.   I got just over three pints.

For more jam recipes as easy as these, check out my ebook on the sidebar.  A Simple Jar of Jam: 180+ recipes & variations for jam using low sugar pectin.  Every purchase goes a long way toward supporting the blog.   Thank you!

Peach Pie Filling in a Jar

Every year we put away peaches for pie filling.  Usually we put our pie filling in the freezer, but freezer space is always at a premium, so this year I made a few quarts of peach pie filling to bottle.  

It was easy.

And, it's pretty.

AND we can use it for pancake topping. 

AND it has nutmeg in it and nutmeg is my favorite spice.   I heart nutmeg.

AND the recipe is flexible and you can make a ton at a time, which you can't do with jelly or jam, [ask me how I know], as long as you know how to do math, which you should.

Ahem. 

This is how I did it.   

First I figured the proportions of stuff I needed for a basic single pie:   4 cups of peaches plus the other pie filling stuff.

Then I took my Giant Bowl of cut up peaches and I measured them.   I had 14 cups.

14 divided by 4 is 3 1/2.    I multiplied everything in the recipe by 3 1/2.

All of you experienced cooks are rolling your eyes.   I don't blame you.   To you this is second nature and we love you for it.    This explanation isn't for you.

Nope, this is for all you new cooks out there just figuring out what to do with your Giant Bowls of peaches that you now have because you were smart enough to take advantage of free food when you saw it.   Good for you!

Back to the regularly scheduled recipe....

Peach Pie Filling for 1 pie:

4 Cups cut up peaches
1 T lemon juice
Put this in a heavy saucepan.   Blue pans are the best.   Just sayin'.
 
Mix in a bowl:
1 Cup sugar
1/8 tsp nutmeg
2 T cornstarch

Add the sugar mixture to the peaches and heat it until thick and clear.    Put in clean, hot jars and process.  [30 minutes for quarts.]


Now, since I had 3.5 times that many peaches, I multiplied everything by 3.5:

14 Cups peaches
3 1/2 T lemon juice

3 1/2 Cups sugar
7 T cornstarch
1/2 tsp nutmeg [because it was easier than 7/16 tsp.   Really.]

Follow the cooking directions as above.

Note:   You CAN NOT do this with jam and jelly and candy recipes.  Those have to be cooked one batch at a time.   Trust me.

You CAN do it with applesauce, fruit butters, soups and stuff like that.

UPDATE:   These will keep on the shelf beautifully for 6 months.  

I've seen books that say that you shouldn't can with corn starch because it separates on the shelf.    I watched these bottles pretty carefully to see if that happened, and when.   They were just fine - and very delicious - for 6 months.    I opened the last one at 8 months and it had started to separate some clear liquid out from a gelled mass.    It was still delicious.    I'm doing more next year.

Peach Maple Jam

We're still working on using up those peaches and of course, summer is when  rural mom's heart turns to ... jam.

But you knew that already, didn't you.

I love peach jam, but this year I wanted to do something a little different with it.    As I was looking around to see what might pair nicely with our peaches, I spied some of our home-made maple syrup.

He-LLO!   I think we have a winner!
Mmmmmmm!

I played around and tried a couple of different versions.  Eric and I had different opinions on the best version so I wrote them both up and you can pick the one you like better.   I like the light version, Eric likes the dark version.

Peach Maple Jam Light:   This has a subtle maple flavor.  The peaches are the star of this jam.

Peach Maple Jam Light on vanilla wafers with a blueberry. 

Ingredients:

• 4 Cups cut up peaches
• 1 T lemon juice
• 3 T Ball pectin [or 1 pkg]
• 1 Cup maple syrup
• 1/2 Cup sugar

Directions:

Puree the peaches.   Put the peach puree, lemon juice and pectin in your favorite jam pot and boil it.  Stir frequently.   After it reaches a hard boil [that you can't stir down, when stirring constantly], continue stirring for 1 minute.

Add maple syrup and sugar.   Stir well.   Return to hard boil.   Hard boil for 1 minute.

Ladle into clean, hot jars.   Process for canning.   [10 minutes for pints and jelly jars].

Peach Maple Jam Dark: The maple and the peaches share the spotlight in this jam.  This recipe really shows off good maple syrup.   The chunks of peach really show up against the dark glaze. 

Ingredients:

• 1/3 Cup water 
• 3 Cups cut up peaches
• 1 T lemon juice
• 3 T Ball pectin [or 1 pkg]
• 1/2 Cup maple syrup
• 1/2 Cup brown sugar

Directions:

Put the water, peaches, lemon juice and pectin in your favorite jam pot and boil it.  Stir frequently.   After it reaches a hard boil [that you can't stir down, when stirring constantly], continue stirring for 1 minute.

Add maple syrup and sugar.   Stir well.   Return to hard boil.   Hard boil for 1 minute.

Ladle into clean, hot jars.   Process for canning.   [10 minutes for pints and jelly jars].

Notes:
Remember, not all pectins are the same.   Follow the directions for your pectin.   If you need help converting the recipe, contact me.   robin at morenna dot com.   I'm happy to help out.

Peach Ice Cream

This year the peaches on my mom's tree were plentiful and early.   And it's a good thing because I love peaches.

First out of the gate on our race to do as many things as we can with fresh peaches is Peach Ice Cream.

Seriously delicious!

Ingredients:

• 4 Cups milk
• 2 1/2 Cups sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 4 eggs beaten
• 5 Cups heavy cream
• 3 Cups peaches cut up

Directions:

1. A day ahead:   Make a custard by heating milk in heavy saucepan until hot but not boiling.   Stir in sugar and salt.  Take out 1/4 of this mixture and stir it slowly into the beaten eggs to warm them up.   Return egg mixture into saucepan.   Stir constantly.   Cook and stir until mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.   Chill overnight.

2. To freeze:   Puree the peaches.   Add puree, custard and cream to ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer's instructions.