Canning & I Made A Pie

August was a busy month in my kitchen.  I am glad to say that it wasn't a continual thing as I would have died of heat stroke had I turned on my stove and/or oven on a regular basis.  Whoever invented the natural gas outdoor grill is this girl's best friend...my family wouldn't have eaten all summer if it weren't for the Weber sitting on our back patio.

 

Anywho...

 

Back at the beginning of August, a local grocery store was having a ridiculous sale on red bell peppers.  They were something like $0.69 or $0.79 each.  And to make the deal even better, these peppers were positively enormous - literally about double the size of a normal red bell pepper.  Whenever those puppies go on good sale, I immediately start thinking about the jalapeno red pepper jelly that I make to give away at Christmas every few years.  Well, guess what folks.  Thanks to that fabulous sale, this just so happens to be one of those years.  I made a total of 5 batches of the stuff (about 30 jars - some 1/2 pint, others are pints) and it's all waiting in my basement cold storage room for me to wrap it up and give it away at Christmas.  Feels good to have at least some of the holiday hustle and bustle already done before the summer is out!

A couple of weekends ago, my little brother and his wife went up to Brigham City one day and brought me back a full bushel of Suncrest peaches.  I'm literally salivating from typing that.  I absolutely love Suncrest peaches - perfect flavor, texture, etc.  I think they're my favorite (thus far...haven't tried all of them).  Now, in case you didn't know, a bushel is a whole lot of fruit.  I spent all of one evening/night and another full day heating up my stove and running around my kitchen to make all sorts of goodies.  From said bushel of peaches I was able to make:

• double batch of fresh fruit freezer mix (peaches, grapes, crushed pineapple & OJ)
• 4 quarts of canned peach quarters
• triple batch of peach freezer jam (6 half pints)
• double batch of cooked peach jam (6 pints + 6 half pints)
• one fresh peach pie
• a handful of leftover fruit eaten plain or on cereal for breakfast

Now I'm totally out of peaches and it makes me kind of sad.  We have a nice fruit stand at the bottom of the hill...I think I'm going to have to stop there one of these days and at least get enough peaches to make another pie and have some for breakfast for a few days.

 

Oh - and I'm so nice.  I'm going to share the recipe for the peach pie on this here blog in the next few days...