Georgia Peach...

BUTT.

You heard me, Georgia. Peach. Butt.

So when my sister, brother-in-law, and I traveled to Georgia we couldn't get over state highway signs. 

Hence, Georgia Peach Butt.

So now every time I eat a peach I think of the always giggle-inducing peach-y tush.

Ok so the real reason for the peach talk...

If you follow me on Instagram {*ahem* follow me on instagram...} you've probably seen that I've been doing a lot of peach picking lately.

A couple of my guy friends have a peach tree; they don't do any treatments on the tree.

It's all natural, baby and it's harvestin' time!

After picking last week I ended up with THIS...

Have you ever wondered how many Peaches a Pepsi box holds??

17 lbs. Seventeen pounds of peaches.

NBD.

Now that is a lot of peaches! I decided that I would try my hand and making some preserves. I went out and bought a crap ton {technical term} of jars and even some of those fancy jar lifter and magnet-y things. 

And we lugged it all up to the cabin for Labor Day to have a guuud 'ol cannin' 'n preezervin' pardee.

Look at those spots! They are so cute!

Peach Preserves

I adapted from this recipe.

17 lbs of peaches {about 14 lbs  after pitting and skinning)

4 Cups of sugar

1/4 cup of lemon juice

First blanch the peaches.

Get the water to a rolling boil and drop a few peaches in.

{You might want to cut off any bruises before boiling -- that's not a bite out of the one above, cross muh heart.}

We tested the process quite a few times. In the other recipe it says to blanch them for only 30-45 seconds. We tried this and it didn't work for us.

We ended up boiling them for about 3 minutes. 

Then toss them into ice-cold water.

After a few minutes you will see the skin starts to prune -- bath-time style. That's when you know they are ready to skin.

Like so.

It will come right off.

If you don't get to the point where it is easy to skin like this^^ you can use a regular peeler.

We composted all of our skins, pits, and bruised parts, but I bet the skins would be delicious if you dried/baked them.

Then slice those babies up into any size you would like.

Mid-preserve goofing.

After slicing and dicing--throw the peaches in a pot, add the lemon and sugar, and let sit for about an hour so the sugar dissolves.

The peaches will give off a lot of liquid.

Now here is the time-consuming part--cookin' the preserves. 

You will want to bring the peaches to a low boil--keep stirring so you don't burn it. {I burnt it not once, but twice. Amateur. Good thing it still tastes good!} 

After it comes to a low boil let it simmer for about 10 minutes--you might want to stir it every little bit to prevent it from burning on the bottom of the pan. After the 10 minutes you, remove it from the heat and let it cool until it is room temperature or just warm to the touch.

I would put it outside in the fresh air with the cover cracked to let it cool. 

As soon as it cools repeat the heating process again. You will do this a total of 5 times. It is the most important part because as it cools, it thickens.

{This whole process took 2 days. Crazy?? Dedication, is what I like to call it. YOLO.}

Immediately after the last boiling round you will want to transfer the preserves to sterilized jars. 

{See Natasha's Kitchen for the proper way to sterilize the jars}

After filling the jars, I boiled them to make sure that they would seal correctly.

After removing them from the water {with my fancy schmancy remover thing-y} I let them cool on wire racks.

The whole night we heard the sweet sound of seal popping. 

And the next morning...

thissss. ^^^^^^

Enjoy!

{For an easier print out of the recipe you can go to Natasha's Kitchen--please note I modified a few details.}