easy*peach*preserves

....if y'all are anything like me, oftentimes you end up with WAYYY more produce/fruit/food [in general] that you had planned on.

This was just what happened to me. After waiting for longer than I thought necessary for my 5 huge ginormous peaches to be ripe, it came the time for me to finally enjoy them. I had bought more than enough, I naively though, to last the engineer and I for at least the length of the workweek.

Turns out, I opened my front door earlier to find a bag of produce from my gardener friend, along with a bag of one dozen local, farmstand peaches.

"'YES!!" was my first thought, then....

...."what on earth am I going to do with close to TWO DOZEN peaches? Yikes!"

After pulling my hair out in frustration over this sudden abundance careful thought and consideration, I figured I might as well put on my happy face - we're talking LOCAL peaches, after all! What more could a foodie gal like me ask for? I knew that I wanted to make something that would last, so I settled on peach preserves made in my bread machine.

Let me repeat that - preserves.made.in.the.bread.machine.

life does not get simpler.

By all means, you can certainly do this on a stovetop with the same ingredients, but I cannot begin to tell you how easy this is if you have a miracle-worker machine bread machine. Here's the what-you-need and how-to below: 

what you need

-a ridiculous amount of peaches...I used 6 large ones, skin on and everything

-scant 1/3 cup of sugar [I normally don't like to put sugar in my preserves, but the engineer likes it a little sweeter...must be why he chose me!....so I threw a little in]

-1 packet of fruit pectin

how to:

1. Begin by cutting your peaches in half around the seed, and discarding them [the seeds, not the peaches. duh].

heavenly goodness.

2. Next, load all the peaches, sugar, and pectin into your bread machine, being sure to set it for the JAM cycle. I've never tried making bread with just fruit, but I think it's a safe bet it wouldn't turn out.

note: if you're making this on the stovetop, place ingredients into a pot and simmer until the desired consistency....probably a good 20-30 minutes.

3. Once complete, pour into canning jars or tupperware, and enj

Because jams and preserves never last long in my house, I typically don't use the canning method to preserves them for months and months. Untreated jars and tupperwares should last a few weeks with regular use.

Hope the hump day is treating y'all well!

cheers!