Canning More Peaches

At the last farmer's market I bought a box of fresh picked perfectly tree ripened peaches.  The skins were thick with fuzz and the bright orange flesh practically fell off the pits once they were sliced open. This week's peaches were a free stone variety that were sweet and juicy and they would be perfect for preserving some as slices in syrup.

I started by blanching and peeling the peaches a few at a time.  If I had the timing right, the skins would pull away from the flesh of the peach with little effort on my part.  Once skinned, each peach was pitted and sliced and then dipped in a lemon juice solution to help prevent browning.  While I worked on making a good sized pile of peach slices, the canner and jars heated up on the stove.

Once I had enough peaches to fill a round of jars for the canner, I mixed up a batch of syrup and started warming up the peach slices to prepare them for canning.  I prefer to hot pack my peaches as I think the final product looks and tastes more appealing than my cold packed peaches.  I ended up processing fourteen pints of peaches from this box and will be eating the left over peaches fresh until I run out of them.  Come winter time I will be tasting these sweet reminders of summer whenever I need a little pick me up.