Peach crisp

OK. So this photo looks a little bit like a mess in a bowl, but I was focused more on eating this more than taking the picture!

Peaches went on sale at my local grocery store (78 cents a pound!). I made a batch of peach jam and was planning to make a peach pie. But my hubby requested peach crisp.  I've tried a few different recipes for peach crisp (or cobbler) and haven't really found one I really like.  So I just decided to use my favorite recipe for apple crisp, but substitute peaches for the apples.  It was a good decision!  The peaches were super juicy, which is why this crisp looks a little soupy.  But the oatmeal topping was good and crunchy on top.  I ate my peach crisp with vanilla ice cream and a raspberry sauce I made based on this recipe from AllRecipes.com. (Raspberries were on sale, too.)

You can find the recipe for my favorite apple crisp (and now peach crisp) from my previous post.

Do you have a favorite peach recipe?  I'm a huge fan of peach pie.  I'd like to try to make peach ice cream sometime, too.

Canning peaches

In my earlier post, I told you how much I loved the Iowa-grown peaches I discovered at Center Grove Orchard in Cambridge.  Well, I liked them so much that I went back to the orchard the next weekend and bought another bag.  As much as I enjoyed the peach pie I made with them, I knew that these peaches would be perfect for canning.  And I had a great recipe that I wanted to try.

Earlier this summer, I picked up a copy of the Better Homes and Gardens Canning special interest magazine.  It's definitely a collectors' issue.  I want to try every recipe in the magazine!  It features canning recipes for every season -- root crops in the fall, squash in the summer, berries in the spring.  There's even an entire section of peach, nectarine and apricot canning recipes.

I had a difficult time deciding, but eventually I picked the spiced peaches recipe.  I loved the idea of canned peaches with a touch of cinnamon-spice flavor, just like a pie.  This recipe was very easy to follow.  The hardest part was prepping all the tiny peaches!  The Iowa-grown peaches were about half the size of the grocery-store variety, which means you have to pit about twice as many!

The only problem I had was that when I pulled the jars out of the canner, I noticed that some of the syrup had leaked out of a few jars.  I was worried that it meant the jars didn't seal properly, but I looked it up on an Extension canning website and discovered that the jars were sealed as long as the lids were "popped" down and would be safe to eat.  However, I decided not to take any chances, and I placed those leaking jars in the refrigerator and ate the peaches within a few days.

I loved these canned peaches!  Such a great way to enjoy Iowa-grown peaches year round, especially since the season is so short.  My only compliant is that I didn't really taste the spices, so next time I'm going to either add more or let the spices "steep" in the syrup for longer.

It's a rather long recipe to type out, so I hope you don't mind, but I'm sharing a link from another blog for the Better Homes and Gardens spiced peaches. Or if you would me to email you a copy, just leave a comment.