Peach Preservation

May 16, 2016 — harves, peach butter, peach chutney, peaches, presrvation

We grow a variety of small cling peaches called Early May. The tree was loaded this year with a big crop. They are so small and easily bruised that I decided not to take surplus to the food bank community farmers’ market. They would be ruined just by handling them. I found some friends to share the bounty, and today I will work on the ripe ones in order to preserve the harvest. We have almost finished our latest batch of mango chutney, and peach chutney is a natural substitute.  I will not even peel my fruit, and will slip the seeds out after I cook them down in a combination of spices, sugar and vinegar.  This will make preparation very simple.

Early May peach crop

I also plan to slow cook a batch of peach butter in the crock pot. I will treat the peaches in a similar fashion, just washing them before cooking.  I also will amend this version by adding a vanilla bean to the mix and substituting honey for the sugar.  When both the chutney and the vanilla peach butter are wafting into the air in my kitchen my house will be a really heavenly place to be.  I like to pop them in my mouth and eat them straight up, but there are too many for us to handle that way.  These are fun ways to keep the flavor going for months.  Have you preserved peaches, gentle reader? I may dry a few, but that takes more effort since you need to cut them off of the seed.