Another ever popular holidaze gift from my kitchen is peach butter; with just a bit of mango and brandy added for interest.
It also happens to be, with the use of frozen pitted, peeled and sliced peaches and mango, wicked easy to toss together; especially if you are used at all to the home canning process.
Note: if you are not familiar with canning, order the Ball Blue Book. It is a pretty terrific resource, with lots of recipes.
INGREDIENTS
•5 lb diced peaches
•24 oz diced mango
•4 cups sugar
•5 tbsp brandy (nice, but optional)
Note 1: use a large Dutch oven-type pot to make this, boil overs are not fun to clean up. I started mine in a large skillet and ended up buying a hand held steam cleaner to get my stove top properly cleaned up.
Note 2: you don’t even really need to thaw the peaches and mango.
Combine the ingredients together in your large pot and cook over low heat, stirring often, for about 45 minutes, until the mixture has thickened and turned a deep golden color.
Give it a taste.
Yum!
Transfer the butter to sterilized jars and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. This batch yielded ten half-pint and four 12-ounce jars.
A note on processing your jars: if you, like us, have hard-ish water, add a cup or so of white vinegar to the water you are boiling the jars in. Your jars will come out sparkling and shiny, with no traces of the chalky mineral coating (harmless, but not exactly charming) and ready for enjoying.
Remove the jars from the boiling pot and cool on a rack. Listen for the jars to “pop” which means that the little circle in the top of the lid has been sucked down and the jar is sealed. You can also gently push down on any of the jar tops that have not popped. If the little circle stays down, your jar is sealed and you are good to go. If not, pop the unsealed jars back into the boiling water bath for another ten minutes. All should now be good.
Allow the jars to cool completely, then label them as you like and prepare for gifting.
Or simply enjoying on your own at home.
This is pretty spectacular on an English muffin, and my new fave (thanks to my sister showing me over Thanksgiving) is Bay’s Brioche. Look in the refrigerated section by the canned biscuits and stuff.