INCREDIBLE PEACHES

Colorado has the most amazing peaches.  They are not grown in my Front Range neighborhood (Boulder, Denver), but on the other side of the continental divide – the Western Slope.  The climate is a little more mild, the precipitation greater.  And the peaches – incredibly divine.  The season is short.  Most of the summer, I don’t need to go to our farmer’s market – my husband grows almost all our vegetables, and I get whatever else I need from his farmer friends – but in peach season I’m on a mission.

I buy a box (20 lbs) of 'seconds' from my favorite growers.  The seconds seem to have no flaws – perfect skin, perfect ripeness.  Perhaps a little variation in size.  The next weekend, I get another box sold through my daughter’s school as a fundraiser. The third week , I’m back to the market for a third box.  Sixty pounds of peaches! 

A good third of them get eaten raw.  Breakfast, snacks, dripping juices onto our t-shirts as we munch, or sliced into a bowl of yoghurt or breakfast cereal.  My husband has built a solar dehydrator, and another quantity are sliced and dried.  My daughter loves these dried peaches above all else – I have to ration the dried ones while the fresh are still around.  My husband thinks he’s dried enough for the winter.  I tell him we’ll be lucky if they last a month.

I slice many, place them in quart Ziploc bags, and place them in our chest freezer.  These are wonderful in the winter in smoothies or baked into desserts or simmered gently into a sauce for waffles.

I love to bake peaches – as crisps, stuffed with chopped nuts, or just sliced and placed in a baking dish with a little apple cider or orange juice in the bottom, and a drizzle of maple syrup.


BAKED PEACHES & NUTS
This recipe is gluten free.

• 4 peaches
• 1/2 cup ground hazelnuts
• 1/2 cup chopped almonds
• 1 T sugar or honey or agave
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 cup orange juice or apple cider
• 3 T orange liqueur or brandy
• shallow baking dish

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
• Mix ground nuts, sweetener and egg yolk together, then mix in chopped nuts.
• Slice the peaches in half and remove the stones.  Place them cut side up in the dish.
• Stuff the peaches with the filling, piling the rest on top of the peach halves.
• Pour the juice in the bottom of the baking dish.
• Cover the dish with a lid or aluminum foil.
• Bake 15 minutes covered.
• Remove the cover and bake 5-10 minutes.
• Put the peaches on a serving plate.
• Mix the liqueur into the juices then pour the sauce over the peaches.
• Serve with yoghurt or whipped cream or ice cream!

JAM

And then there’s jam.  I lived in England for ten years, where jam-making is a national sport.  I don’t remember anybody ever buying fruit for jam – it was a matter of going to one’s favorite wild blackberry or plum patch, harvesting until you dropped, them cooking.  

I was quite paranoid about jam-making for a long time.  It seemed daunting – all the difficulties with setting, all the cautions about bacteria.  Now, however, it is one of the most relaxing things I do in the kitchen.

First, I decided I didn’t really care about set.  One problem that  I was having was that much of the fruit I was using (peaches, strawberries, plums) was low-pectin (and therefore low-set) fruit.  This means I would have to add extra pectin, extra acid (which helps release pectin), lots of sugar, or cook it a long time in order to get a ‘jam’ set.  However, most of the reason I want to make my own jam is that I find commercial products – even the high-end ones – too sweet.  I wanted to lower the sugar content.  Pectin addition seemed incredibly complicated – the box instructions filled with all kinds of detailed measurements that needed to be followed exactly.  And I realized I like ‘conserves’  - loose-ish mushy fruit rather than firm jam.  They're more versatile, for one thing – the fruit can be put into desserts, added to yoghurt or cooked cereals or spread on toast – and has a fresh flavor. 

So, I make ‘jam’ that might not be quite jam.  The method is fairly simple.  Use ripe but not over-ripe fruit.  Cut up the fruit.  Weigh it if you want to keep track, from year to year, of how much of each ingredient you use.  With peaches, I add some lemon zest and lemon juice – it zips up the flavor as well as increasing pectin.  With the Colorado peaches, I don’t add any water, but if my peaches are old or dryish, I might add a little.  I put everything in a large stainless steel pot and cook gently.  Meanwhile, I estimate a sugar amount, place it in a pie or cake tin, and warm it in the oven (the oven is already warming the jars – see below).  When the fruit is cooked, I mash it with my potato masher until it’s the consistency I want.  Then I take it off the heat.  Add the warmed sugar.  A tip I learned in England – if the fruit is boiling, or the sugar cold, the jam will crystallize, giving an  unpleasant texture and the impossibility of any kind of set.  When the sugar is mixed in, bring the mix back to the boil and cook hard for a few minutes.  If you want a set, you can start checking.  You may need to boil for up to fifteen minutes.  (More on testing set below).  Otherwise, less than five minutes at a rolling boil (one that won’t go away when you stir it) is fine.  Give it a stir occasional – you don’t want sticking.  Then take off the heat for a few minutes, and place into hot jars.

ON JARS

American jam recipes have a lot of complicated instructions about sterilizing jars, and about placing the full jars in canning pots and boiling to death.  In Britain, life is simpler. And so is jam.  The jars need to be very clean and dry and warm.  I've found two ways to do this.  The first is to run them on a hot cycle in your dishwasher, with a heated dry, and keep the dishwasher door closed until ready to use.  This definitely sterilizes the jar.  However, it does take quite a bit of energy to run the dishwasher like this, and requires some forethought as to timing - if you wait too long, your jars will be cold. If you forget, your jars aren't done. The other option is to wash the jars (even if they're already clean) in very hot soapy water and then place them in a 275 degree oven.  The jars can sit there quite happily until you're ready to use them.

The Brits cover their jams with wax paper discs, but I do love the American canning lids.  The rings can be re-used, but the insets (the little circles) should be new.  I wash the lids, put them in a bowl, pour boiling water over them and leave them until needed.

ON SET

When I'm beginning my jam recipe I put a small saucer in the freezer to cool.  To check the set, I put a spoonful of jam on the saucer and allow it to cool.  Then I run my finger across the middle.  The halves should remain separate, instead of running together.

If you have a candy thermometer, the set is 104 degrees F.  

If you're wanting a set for jam start testing soon after boiling point.  With some fruit (eg apples and currants) there is a danger of oversetting.  There are some wild berries that grow down the road from me; I once attempted jam and ended up with solid rubber.

I don't like to cook the jam to death, so I will often stop before the setting point is reached.  As mentioned above, this leaves a mushy, soft, delicious spread.

ON POTTING

When the setting point (or for me, the finish point, even if it's not set), take the jam off the heat and let stand for about 10 minutes.

I get my potting tools ready - a small plate to put the jar on, a soup ladle, a funnel (cooking and hardware stores sell these - a very wide mouthed funnel that really makes things easier), my lids, a dishcloth or pot holder.

I take out a hot jar, place it on the plate, put the funnel in the jar, use the ladle to scoop the jam into the jar.  I fill to the top.

Put on the lid insert then the ring.  The jar will be hot, so I hold it with a dishcloth or pot holder and tighten.

That's it.  I leave the jars until cool, then label with a sharpie (date and type of jam - you think you'll remember, but you don't).

PEACH JAM

• 3 lb peaches
• 1 lemon - zest and juice
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• water as needed
• optional - 1 cup strawberries or blueberries (frozen is fine)
• canning jars and lids

• Wash the jars in hot soapy water (see above) and place in a 275 degree oven.
• Chop the peaches into small chunks and place them in a large pot with the lemon juice and lemon zest.  (I don't peel my peaches but if you need to, blanch them in boiling water for a minute and the skins will peel off quite easily).
• If the peaches are dry, add up to 1 cup of water.
• Simmer the fruit gently. If the fruit is sticking to the bottom, add a little water, but you don't want too much liquid.
• While the peaches are cooking, put the sugar in a dish or pie tin or baking tin and place in the oven to warm.
• Also while the peaches are cooking, wash the jar lids in very hot soapy water, place them in a bowl, and pour boiling water over to cover.
• When the peaches are soft, mash them gently until they're the texture you want.
• Sometimes for color or a little taste variation, I'll add some berries at the end. Chop the strawberries into small-ish chunks.  If they're frozen, you don't need to thaw them - just throw them into the peaches towards the end, and let them heat through until mushy.
• Take the pot off the heat.
• Add the warmed sugar.  I usually start with about 1/2 of the amount I've listed, mix it in, taste it, then add some more.  Please note - my recipe is about 1/2 the sugar amount of a standard jam recipe.  You can certainly add more than my recipe states, if you like a sweeter jam or want a firmer set.  
• Bring the fruit/sugar to a hard boil (when you stir it, it keeps boiling).  Boil for 5 minutes for soft conserve, or 10-15 minutes for a firmer jam (see above for set).
• Pot as described above.

OK - I've just read this recipe, and it seems like there are too many steps.  So I'll simplify. 1. Cook your fruit until soft and mushy.  2. Take off heat and add warmed sugar to taste.  3. Boil hard for a few minutes or until set.  4. Pot in sterile jars.

Enjoy!