Peeling peaches, canning juice and corn

When I got my summer kitchen I didn't think I was gonna have to live out here. But it seems that way some days. I started kinda early this morning so I could get my peaches canned and the tomatoes worked up into juice. I bet you didn't notice that peach pits are the same size no matter what size the peaches are. Well they are. Have a looksee sometime. Peel a big and little peach and compare the pit size, they will be the same size. OK just another one of my ingenious discoveries. I canned some of my peaches in slices and some in halves. I just peel them with a sharp knife and don't scald them if the peaches are good and solid. But if they are really ripe and softer I will scald them to skin em. Peaches are easy to open like an avocado if you cut the right way. Looking at a peach you will see a seam on one side, imagine the seam going all the way around the peach. Those halves are called cheeks. You want to cut a circle around the peach that is in the middle of each cheek, then twist and the peach will come apart easily leaving the pit in one side. Flick the pit out and peel the peach just like peeling an apple. Then cut as desired into water that has Fruit Fresh added to it. Then transfer the fruit to your kettle leaving the treated water behind. Sprinkle a light dusting of Fruit Fresh over fruit again and a thin layer of sugar. Continue till you are done with the peaches.Add a good layer of sugar on top and almost cover them with water. Simmer till they are fork tender stirring gently. When they are done, ladle into hot jars and cover with the cooking liquid and seal. You can water bath for quarts for 30 minutes if you like, but I don't. Not hard to do. Tomato juice is a lil more time consuming but well worth it. I got about 2 gallon of juice canned today using odd sized jars. I just used the tomatoes that were ripe enough to make juice and left the others in a box to finish getting ripe. I will have to pick more tomatoes tomorrow anyway. So they are an ongoing project. You can see from the picture that I ain't perfect too. Jus like a tad bit of juice to make the pint full, and a couple jars of muh peaches shrunk. But they will taste just as good.

 
We went to the garden this afternoon to pick some of the sweet corn from the 3rd patch we planted. It is Stowells Evergreen, a white sweet corn. This is probably the only seed that I got from Shumway that was true to character. And it was really pretty corn. I have 16 pints of that in the pressure canner right now. We did put a few bags in the freezer on the cob. In the process of vacuum sealing the corn Rodger made the comment that the bags were safe to boil in. He said maybe we should just add some butter to the bags with the corn and then when we eat it just boil it in the bag. Great idea! So we put a few in there with butter already added. If it works it will be the lazy way to butter ya corn. Darn, now why didn't I think to sprinkle some salt and pepper in there with the butter? Well there is always tomorrow night when we pick more corn.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella