Colorado Peach Jam - How I Love Thee

Colorado Peach Jam

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     The Jam that started it ALL. Out here we have beautiful Colorado Western Slope Peaches... and each year we'd receive a bushel and try to decide what to do with it all before it 'went bad'.  Most we gave away. One day I decided to try make an entire batch of Colorado Peach Jam.  It is now the most requested Jam that I make.  There is a sweetness to it that is unmatched in any commercial jams I have tasted. I always giggle and think of "Seinfeld" when I see a peach and Kramer savoring every bite of his Mackinaw Peaches! He looks just like me with a peach! makes me laugh!   Then again, everything makes me laugh - like using an immersion blender for the first time making this jam and lifting it up out of the pan too quickly.  Motor running, hot jam flying all over me and my kitchen, oh! the JOY of Peaches!  I now have my immersion blender mantra down pat "do not lift, do not lift, do NOT lift! "   ~Enjoy!

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Homemade Colorado Peach Jam

Ingredients: 
8 lbs Colorado Peaches
5 1/2 Cups of Sugar
2 Tbs Bottled Lemon Juice
1/2 Orange, cut up with peel left on.
1 packet of SureJel (I use low sugar pink box, or pectin of your preference) 

Directions: 

1. Boil peaches in water for about one minute - then submerge in ice water, and skins slip right off.  
2. Place all peeled, pitted  and sliced peaches, along with the cut up orange into large stock pot or jam pan.
   
3. Cook fruit on medium-high heat until softened and then blend with immersion blender (do not liquefy) 
4. When peaches have cooked down to an applesauce consistency (I like mine thick and chunky) Add in the sugar, lemon juice, and pectin.
5. Follow pectin instructions (mine was to boil hard for one minute).
6. Fill hot sterilized jars with hot jam to 1/4" head-space. Apply a new lid and band.  
   
7. Process in a boiling water bath for 5 minutes or according to your local altitude.

*you can replace up to half of the sugar in this recipe with honey if preferred. 

Photos by: Diane Baker for Canning and Cooking at Home

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