What Good Luck, What Bad Luck!

This week, I was at Girls Camp with 125 girls, 12-18, from my stake. As a friend put it, they were "between the ages of 'pain in the neck' and 'trouble'." The week was great, of course! There were many spiritual moments, there is nothing like hearing this song sung by 125 young women's sweet voices.

It was a wrench to come home from those special moments to real life again! At home, I found my good friend had brought my box of peaches and left them on the kitchen counter. What Good Luck!




However, before I found the peaches, they were discovered by Sugar Ants. What Bad Luck!

An ant massacre ensued, in which every ant warrior was killed. What Good Luck! For me, anyway. Not so much, for them.

Half the box was already bruised and getting soft. What Bad Luck!

I was able to save enough from that half to make 3 batches of peach jam. What Good Luck!

Sadly, I had only enough of the pectin I like that uses only small amounts of sugar for two batches. What Bad Luck!

I made a double batch, and froze the rest of the peach smash. I can get more pectin at the berry farm. What Good Luck!

Today, I canned the other half of the peaches, and there were about half a dozen left (after the one I cut up on my cereal for breakfast - yum!) so I froze those for another batch of jam, too. What Good Luck!

I didn't want to smash them too much, so they are floating in the syrup.

You might wonder why I can in pints instead of quarts. I'm only canning for one - me. Each jar holds about 2 very large peaches. If I had cut the pieces smaller or smashed them, I could have gotten more in, but I wanted them bigger.

Jam info: The only thing I did differently from the directions in the Pomona Pectin was that instead of 1/2 c. of lime juice, I added 1/2 c. of Real Lime juice. That's the concentrate. I could have watered it down to lime juice, but it adds just a little tang of lime to the peach jam that is yummy.

Syrup for peaches: I made ultra light syrup. I used about 2.5 cups I had left from the raspberries, and added another 3 cups of water and 1/3 c. of sugar plus 5 teaspoons of preservative to keep the color from going dark. I boiled that while I heated jars and sliced the peaches. Then it was stuff the jar full, pour in syrup, get bubbles out and cap with a hot lid and ring before plunking into the water bath. Can 25 minutes at boiling for pints and 30 minutes for quarts.