Summer Fruit!

There were peaches at the market on Saturday. I got a box, with 30+, for $15. Organic, totally ripe, picked that morning. Very yummy. Of course we ate some. Then I made jam out of some of them, then I made wine out of the rest of them. Then we ate the last two.

I'd never canned anything or made jam before, so it was something of an experiment. I went to Borders and found a recipe that looked interesting, then I came home and winged it. I didn't really have canning equiptment, so I improvised a bit. I learned two things: All recipes call for way too much goddamn sugar, and I really need canning equiptment. The recipe was Spiced Wine Peach Jam or some such thing, and for 4 cups of fruit it called for 5 cups of sugar. It came out tasty enough, but it was more like candy than anything else. I feel like if I'm going to the trouble to cook something, it should be a little bit healthy. And I like to taste the fruit, not just the sugar. The jam actually tasted a lot like the apple butter my parents used to make every year before our apple tree died. (exccept slightly more peachy and less appley)

The peach wine should be really good. It smells really good. I kind of just wawnt to drink it.

Today Brandon and I went down to the marsh and picked a few buckets of blackberries. I just canned half of them in the brand new canning pot I just bought. I should mention that I didn't use some stinking recipe that called for a whole bag of sugar either. I just used a little bit of honey until it tasted good, and I used the type of pectin that's ok with that. It's looking good so far. Very satisfying. The pears are getting ripe on our kitchen table, so tomorrow I'm planning on making some pear butter. And eventually some pear wine. And eventually some blackberry wine. And other yummy stuff. Unfortunately I also have to go to school tomorrow.