My family and I have just arrived home from our annual summer vacation to Kelowna where we spend a week staying on the shores of Lake Okanagan.
The climate there is very hot and very dry, so our days are mainly spent swimming, biking, and playing on the beach. This particular region of British Columbia, is known as "the Okanagan" and is also famous for wineries and orchards. Our holiday usually coincides with the cherry, apricot and peach harvest, so we always choose a day toward the end of our trip and spend a couple of hours picking peaches at a local farm to bring home. The peaches are amazing, big, beautiful in colour, and exceptionally delicious. We keep as many as we can in the fridge so that they don't spoil, and every day take a few out to ripen so that we may enjoy them for many weeks. My kids love jam, and there's nothing better than homemade jam, so I always try and make some with the peaches we have brought back from our holiday. To do so, first you must wash about 5 500mL glass jars with snap lids and put them in the oven to sterilize at 225 F. for a minimum of 10 minutes. Next, you must prepare your peaches. They must be peeled and finely chopped to make 5 cups. You then take a package of pectin powder that can be purchased at any grocery store and mix it with cup of sugar and then add it to your peaches in a large pot on the stove set to medium-high heat. You then bring the peach-pectin mixture to a boil. Next, you add an additional 3 cups of sugar and then return your peaches to a full rolling boil and boil hard for about a minute, stirring constantly. Remove your jam from the heat, and continue stirring for about five minutes. You then fill your warm jars from the oven to within a inch of the rim and place the lids on. When this has been completed, you have made homemade jam that you and your family can enjoy in the middle of winter and will no doubt remind you of the beautiful days of summer.
