A post in which I "do that tomorrow"

I woke up today feeling lazy. Had I not already actually purchased the peaches, it wouldn’t have been done this morning. But as it was they were already in the fridge and had to be dealt with. I had some brekkie, and set to.

OK, when I tell you I bought peaches that doesn’t really adequately cover it. Being a man, I bought a half a bushel of peaches (for the uninitiated, this is WAY too many). Because you just have to have a bunch for preserves, right? I have this problem of things not really looking that big until I get them home. I had some vague uneasiness yesterday when I lugged the basket into the house (including the one peach that, like a wiggly shopping cart wheel, just doesn’t want to go, requiring me to move the car to fetch it from where it had dropped and rolled up underneath). But since I didn’t have to do anything with them yesterday and they fit in the fridge, I moved that concern to the back burner.

Today I had to confront actual numbers.

Sorting through and pulling out fruit to take for lunch this week actually didn’t make much of a dent. I heated some water and started scalding them so the skins would slip off. I ran out of big bowls, and had to stop to peel for a while.

Fortunately, the second batch of scalded peaches was smaller. I skinned them all, pitted them, and sliced them into three large (3-5 quart) mixing bowls. Then I read the instructions on the SureJell I had purchased. It said “three cups of pitted, peeled peaches”. And I thought WFT? as I surveyed at least 25 cups of prepared fruit. I made a quadruple portion of jam, which used about one bowl of the fruit. As that was soaked in lemon juice and sugar, I decided that was enough jam. I spooned the rest of the prepared fruit into freezer bags, going into Lucy mode as I did so and eating as I packed, and left a couple of cups of them cut up in the fridge to eat on.

The jam filled every jar I had handily, with none left over (21 jars - 15 half-pints and 6 pints), which was rather surprising to me. My life usually just doesn’t work like that. It tastes good, but absolutely nothing like my mother’s. She told me that she used the SureJell recipe, but we’ll have to talk about that, or I’ll have to watch her do it or something. What helped me is that the peaches are absolutely gorgeously delicious. It’s the height of the season, and the early plentiful rain, coupled with the later hot dry weather, has created just about perfect peaches. They are wonderful.

When I got done (much later in the day), I was whooped, and I still hadn’t made any lunches for the week. I have sandwich stuff that will last a couple of days though, and decide to sit down for a bit. Well that bit turned into a while, and by that evening I was hurting. Between the jam making and fruit freezing, two trips to the store, and doing multiple loads of laundry, I had overdone it. I’m going to have to eat sandwiches for a while and see if I can get something put together. I have a busy week ahead.