Ok so TECHNICALLY this isn't a grandma's recipe. But if they'd known about it I have no doubt they'd have done it. It is the ultimate in waste not want not recipe. My grandmothers were from the waste not want not generation, and we in our "let's throw it away and get a new one" society could learn a lot from paying attention. Even I, who consider myself pretty frugal, have learned a lot even by looking at their cookbooks. For example if pages were falling out of your cookbook what would you do? Perhaps bag the cookbook and get your recipes online right. Perhaps you'd toss it and get a new one but would you EVER think to put the hole punch reinforcing stickers on the pages? I know I wouldn't have.
A friend and I did our canning together this year because she has a peach tree and wanted to learn how to can and I had a canner and wanted someone to entertain my boys while I canned. She has two boys that are very entertaining.
When she got here she mentioned the peach pit recipe that called for a bushel of peach pits and peels. We decided to try it out with her half bushel and mine. We didn't do them all at the same time so we put them in the freezer until we had all we needed and found the time to do it.
You're suppose to put the pits and peels in a pot with water to cover them plus two inches. Her peaches were suppose to be freestone but ended up being cling so there was a lot of juices from the fruit on the pits to make the jelly ( I ended up being able to make two batches ) and I didn't need to add any water.
Then you were to boil them for 30-45 minutes and strain out 3 1/2 cups of the juices into another pan and add a box of pectin.
What was interesting to me was the difference in color as the ingredients were added.
Before the pectin was added
After the pectin ( and then bring to a full boil before adding the sugar )
After the 4 1/2 cups of sugar are added.
After adding the sugar boil for two minutes ( stirring constantly) then pour it into your jam jars. After that I processed them in a steam canner for 20 minutes ( ten minutes with ten minutes to account for altitude) then set them out to cool. Look at these beauties!
At first I thought they hadn't set up and it had succumb to the Grandma's cookbooks curse, but I'm happy to report they are all little jelly jewels!
