Having presented myself with 1 bushel of peaches, and being not so fond (or fast) at hand peeling, I decided to revisit the art of blanch-peeling them.  My previous experience with that method proved…. unfruitful at best.  The peels wouldn’t budge, and they had to be carved off with a paring knife.  After some trial and error, and much observing, I have finally discovered the secret to successful blanch-peeling. 

  First, you must start with peaches that are not firms.  They need to sit for 2 days, preferably about 4 (if starting with firms).  They needn’t be mushy, but you can tell when the peach is ready to give up it’s peel by feeling it.  If it “slips” a little when you push it with your fingers, it is ready.  If the peel sticks firmly in place, then forget it.  Usually I don’t purchase fruits and veggies that have the “slip” feeling.  Also, you don’t need to score the blossom end of the peach.  Several sources recommended doing so, but I found that if the peach was not ready to give up it’s skin, then you are not getting it off unless you use a knife.  On a peach that is ready, you don’t need to score anyway.

  Second, you set up your baths… boiling water, ice water, a bowl for scraps, and one or two bowls filled with water and a few squirts of lemon juice from a bottle.  Next you do only one peach at a time.  If you do several peaches in the boiling water bath, then the water stops boiling, and you want it to stay at a nice rolling boil.  Process for 1 minute, then move it to the ice bath, and boil another.  I recommend using a timer until you get a rhythm down.  Once the minute is up, move them along again, only this time, the chilled peach is ready to peel.  So each minute will be boil one -chill one -peel one (peel, cut in half along the “butt”, open, remove stone, place in bowl w/juice).  It takes less than a minute to slip the peels off one (only 25 seconds if it’s really loose).  If you should find one that’s a little less than cooperative, then set it aside.  Sometimes after the peach sits for a few minutes, it’ll be more cooperative.  You will still want to have the knife handy in case it still doesn’t want peeled.  I find that if they are small and full of blemishes, then they give more hassels than the softball size ones.  To peel, start at the stem end and pinch some skin with your fingers and pull down.  It’s not quite as easy as tomatoes, but still very easy.  I peeled half a bushel in less than an hour this way.

  One other lesson learned concerning peaches: the canning book says to let the jars cool IN the water bath with the fire off for about 5 minutes.  This is not a suggestion.  I learned the hard way this is a MUST.  I processed 6 quart jars, promptly removed them from the bath, and watched each one burst open.  Needless to say, 6 raw pack quarts becomes 3 hot pack quarts.  That was a day lost.  I spent all day Saturday learning and doing peaches.  It took a great deal of time to figure out the peeling process, through trial and error.  Then I took them all to my Dad’s to process, only to have them spew all over.   Then I (mostly) dropped one (losing about 8 slices or so).  I managed to save the jar, but I was very displeased with my actions.  So for all the hard work, I have only 3 quarts of peaches from that day’s work.  But they are nicely fitted into those jars, so they really are 3 quarts worth. 

  Today I did the other half bushel.  They are only halves, and I’m chilling some pie dough I just made, in prep for a pie.  I might go can the rest of these up.  I do have 5 or 6 quarts of sugar-pack peaches in the deep freezer, but DS is fond of the canned variety, so I’ll be doing those later.  Wish me luck!

  Sunday I spent digging potatoes.   I got a whole wheel-barrel nearly full.  The Yukon golds are good.  The Kennebec Reds can grow huge, which does have a bad side.  They are more likely to be impaled with the shovel when they grow that large.  I have to go seperate them still, so I guess we’ll be eating potato salad with dinner.  For a reference, I planted 3 rows of each, with 10-12 hills per row.  It was 10 lbs of seed potato.  I don’t think I did too bad for my first time planting potatoes.