Feeding birds jelly
Not exactly a question but wanted to tell you about an oops that turned out ok. A couple of years ago I had way too many yellow tomatoes. I refuse to waste anything I can use so I made tomato marmalade with them. As you say, it was “blecyucky”. I started to throw it away but stingy me, there is a lot of sugar in it. This spring a whole flock of Hooded Orioles and Black Headed Grosbeaks showed up. They love sweets so I tried giving them some of the marmalade. They love it. So funny to watch them get their feet sticky and fuss getting them cleaned. I had chopped the tomatoes so there are chunks that they seem to like. One odd thing I’ve noticed, their colors are brighter every week. I used to have canaries and sometimes gave them special food to make their colors brighter. It seems that the tomatoes are brightening the colors on the birds too. One of the Orioles looks like he has a battery in his pocket, a brilliant burnt orange. So now I know what to do with the jelly/jam I find I don’t care for. Thought you would find this interesting.
Franci Osborne
Ignacio, Colorado
How cool! I’m still feeding Baltimore Orioles my grape jam and yesterday I found out why my jam was disappearing so fast; a red squirrel was lapping it up. Who’d have thought? Now that you’ve shared your experience I’m going to try some other jams as I really don’t have a lot of grape left. It’s interesting about the color in their feathers too. — Jackie
Canning peaches
It’s almost peach season again and I have a question for you. How do I keep my canned peaches from being soft/mushy? I have tried canning several different varieties, canning them while hard, while still very firm, and just make jam from the ripe ones. I raw pack, water bath pints 25 minutes and get soft peaches. I generally cut each peach into 6 slices. I also use a very light syrup, as my hubby is diabetic. Can I add something to help keep the peaches firmer? I also have the same problem with pears and can them while they are still hard.
Lee Galloway
Grants Pass, Oregon
Try hot packing your peaches as they tend to stay firmer. You wouldn’t think that but when you hot pack your peaches, you only heat them in syrup until they are thoroughly hot — you don’t boil them. Then working quickly, get them into hot jars and in the water bath canner while they are still hot. Doing it this way the peaches don’t have to stay in the hot water so long waiting to come to a boil — they don’t “cook” as much. You only process pints for 20 minutes when hot packing them too. Less cooking means firmer fruit. — Jackie
Sarah,
I’ve never been able to scald the skins enough to get them off firm (unripe) peaches! That’s a huge frustration to be sure. I just let them sit a day or two and they’ll usually ripen enough so the skins will slip right off after dipping in boiling water.
Rather than making a syrup when canning fruit, put sugar in bottom of jar and pour a cup or so of boiling water in the jar, swish it around until dissolved and add raw fruit. No shortage or leftover syrup. My mother always used 1/2 cup of sugar per quart for peaches and pears but we use alot less (1/3 or 1/4 cup).
Hello, concerning peaches, I’ve had my best results using raw-peeled ones. They need to be quite ripe for doing this, and it is more labour-intensive indeed.
You cut the full peach into slices, discard the pit, and peel of each slice in one go. They then go into acidified water until you’re done with your load. Heat your syrup, add the slices as Jackie indicated, and proceed as usual. With such ripe peaches I find a lighter syrup makes a better-tasting product despite my sweet tooth. As a bonus, the skins are a breeze to dry and you can use them in teas all winter long.
It is a bit longer yet easy to do whiole watching TV / YouTube, and you stay cooler than near a stove. It does require ripe fruit though ; on the other hand I’ve always had difficulties loosening the skins on firm peaches no matter how long I scalded them. Even halving them beforehand to ensure all the skin side would touch the water didn’t solve the issue, and resulted in very spongy soft canned peaches.
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