Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Millions of peaches, peaches for free!

My mom tells it like this:

"Abby called me up the other day and said 'Mom, I want to make jam, and I feel like that's something I should learn how to do from my mom. I want to come up conference weekend and make jam with you.' Kylie called 3 days later and said 'Mom, I thought the whole jam thing sounded like a good idea, so I fanagled myself some free peaches, looked up how to make jam on the internet, adapted it to a strawberry/peach combo, and man is it delicious!'"
Just a little insight into the way my personality differs from my sister's. Good thing we love each other!
It's true. My sister mentioned homemade freezer jam and my mouth watered. A woman that I work with was offering free peaches to anyone who would come and get them off her trees. So Landon and I went and filled two large boxes with amazing, fresh peaches. We then spent the next 4 days up to our elbows in peach juice as we peeled and sliced all of them (minus the several pounds that we just ate on the spot) and put them in our freezer. I would have loved to can them, but I lack the proper tools. Someday I am sure I'll get into that. Anyway, we also made several quarts of freezer jam. I was proud of myself because I found a recipe that didn't require sure-gel. I have to confess that stuff has always freaked me out. I mean, what IS it? No one seems to know... My recipe was all natural. Still full of sugar, but what are you gonna do, right? It's delicious. Our freezer is now so full of peaches that we have to slam it really hard to get it to close. We have already used one bag to make peach cobler for a FHE with Jesse and Catherine, and it turned out delicious! As an epilouge, I also went up to Idaho last weekend and made strawberry jam, so as not to miss out on the mother/daughter/sister bonding time. It's yummy too!
In addition to the jam-session, I was able to see one of my dearest friends this weekend. She brought her two kids up to my mom's house and we played and talked for hours. It was so fun! I don't keep in touch with that many of my high school friends. It felt great to have someone to talk things over with and just be goofy with. Friends are one of life's little gifts to us for making it through the daily grind, I think.
While I was in Idaho, Landon was in Laramie, WY, at the "Rocky Mt. Renezvous." It's a networking conference for Geologists. He had a blast and came home with a bag full of goodies, including T-shirts, a reading lamp, and a handfull of pens (you can never have too many). It was a great experience for him, and he made a lot of new friends. It's so crazy to think that he will be graduating in 7 and 1/2 months! It seems long and short simultaneously.
We are now looking forward to lots of family time in October: a visit from my parents next week, a possible trip to Yellowstone the week after, a Burgener business trip to Provo the next weekend, a visit from Miles a few days later, and then a trek up to Rexburg for Halloween! Woosh, I am tired and excited just reading that. Should be an eventful Fall!!

4 comments:

Anni Winings said...

Sure-gel, like most other pectins, is just a type of soluble fiber that they extract from fruits, then dry it in a powder form. When you use it in proper quantities with fruit puree and sugar, it gels things up well, sort of the same way jello works, although the element in jello is quite different. I loved my food science class.
We should get together sometime. We're only like a mile and a half away from you now, it would be terrible to miss this opportunity of having you guys so close. Just let me know!

Andrea said...

Yummy! I'm jealous! I'm also jealous that you got to see Erica! I haven't talked to her in ages...I think she dropped off the earth or something! ha ha Miss you guys!

Nancy said...

That's so cool that you could get all those peaches for free! I wanted to have canned peaches but I never found them at the price I wanted to pay. Don't you love getting something like this done and you have all this yummy stuff!?

Catherine said...

THATS what you made that awesome cobbler from!!!!

...so tasty....:)