Monica tries to cook...

Honey Spiced Peaches
It took me a while to get around to using these, but I thought they were very tasty. I thinly sliced the wedges and laid them neatly on the raw side of a pancake while the other side was cooking, then flipped them over and let the peaches caramelize a bit and cook into the pancakes. This was a great use of these peaches and I will definitely be using it again.

Peach Salsa
I was pleased when I popped open a can of peach salsa. It was pleasantly spicy! There were also sweet notes from the peach. I had it with tortilla chips, but I think it would be good over fish or chicken as well (warmed up of course).

Peach Rum Sauce
This is the only canning recipe I got to try that day, as there was almost a full jar left over. I made it twice - it is SO delicious! I reduced it like, forever, so it was super thick and the alcohol was mostly gone with only the flavor remaining. I tried it plain (yum), stirred into plain Greek yogurt (double yum), and on vanilla ice cream, which I didn't care for after a few bites because the vanilla overpowered the flavor of the sauce and conflicted with it in not the best way. This did make me wonder, though, whether I could stir this into a plain custard ice cream base BEFORE making the ice cream - peach rum ice cream. Sounds delicious!!! Later, I used the peach rum sauce as a base for a spicy barbecue-ish sauce with braised chicken breasts.
I looked at both the original recipe in the Ball book and the recipe linked here, and decided to modify the linked recipe slightly by using an extra 1/2 cup of sugar (regular) and only 1 cup of rum. In the future, I might reduce the sugar slightly, but it was delicious so I'm not sure whether it's necessary. I ended up making a second batch (1.5 times the original recipe) and leaving it as-is.

Note: I waited to post this entry until I had tried all the products in order to note suggestions for next year. All of these things were canned in August, except the second batch of Peach Rum Sauce, which was done in September.

I wanted to can pickles before the end of the summer. I LOVE pickles and I am very particular about which kinds. My favorites are the ones you get at delis when you go to buy subs (Just Subs in NJ is my favorite, they have several locations) and, interestingly enough, the Shop Rite brand kosher dills found in the refrigerated section near the Kraft singles and bacon and stuff. I like to eat pickles when I am in a munching mood, because they are so low in calories but fairly filling. I eat them with a fork and a knife in front of the TV. I know, really weird.

Anyway, back to the canning. I bought 4 pints of baby cucumbers to pickle and decided on the garlic dill pickles from Food in Jars - they sounded like what I like, and they required far less work than the recipes in the Ball Complete book. I cut the cucumbers into spears and got some grape leaves from my Nonna - they help pickles to stay crisp.

The recipe made 8 pints of pickles, but I guess I simmered my brine too long because I only had enough for almost 7 jars. I was able to make enough extra to top off the seventh jar, but then I ran out of cider vinegar. I didn't want to hold up processing the rest of the jars, so I decided I would process the 7 I had done and use regular white vinegar to make the last jar into refrigerator pickles.

This happened about 2 weeks ago, and I just cracked open that refrigerator jar to try one. Oh man, was it delicious! Sour and spicy. It was pretty strong, but I'm interested to see the difference with the cider vinegar. I think the grape leaves definitely helped, but I also didn't run this batch through the canner, so that may have made a difference.

When I crack open a processed jar I'll post an update of what those taste like. Until then, I will enjoy my refrigerator pickles as an afternoon snack :)