Easy Crockpot Peach Butter

I received my second of three gifted CSAs last week (I still can't thank Laura enough!), and as expected, we were once again swimming in fresh produce. Admittedly, I made a couple mistakes with my storage solutions and lost the potatoes and nectarines (it was more humid in my kitchen than I realized), but the peaches remained the stalwart of the group. This was the second time this summer I'd received a 5 lb. bag of fresh peaches, and though I had previously really enjoyed incorporating them into nearly every meal I made for a week (peach smoothies, peach and blueberry chicken salad, peach cobbler...the list goes on), I just couldn't face another round of daily Pinterest searches for "peach..."

So I did what any self-respecting mid-century housewife would do and I made fruit butter! This was my first foray into the wide world of preserved fruit, and I was amazed at how easy it was to make such a delicious spread. The idea of standing over a hot stove all afternoon made me want to plunge into the nearest body of water (which for me is the East River, so that wasn't gonna happen), so I made it all in the crockpot. While it was nearly an all-day affair (prepping the peaches took about half an hour, and as you'll see in the recipe below, the peaches get pureed halfway through the six-hour cooking process), the sweet smells of cinnamon and nutmeg that filled my kitchen made me realize that fall is just around the corner...and that I really, really have to get cracking on that summer tan. Also, cooking the peaches on low for a longer amount of time allows the juices to fully extract, resulting in a wonderfully full-bodied and robust flavor.

Put this peach butter on toast, mix it in to your yogurt or cottage cheese, and call me crazy, but I spread a little onto the bread of my lunchtime chicken salad sandwich, and oh wow was it good. Also, in the category of Personal Education and Knowledge-Gained, I offer you this fantastic breakdown of what constitutes jelly versus jam versus compote versus fruit butter versus a couple other things I didn't even know existed. Don't make the mistake of giving the wrong name to your fruit spread like I originally did! It's very disheartening to spend the better part of an afternoon thinking you're making peach jam when what you're really doing is making peach butter. It changes your entire outlook on life. No, I'm not quite sure exactly how that happens, but trust me - it does.

Easy Crockpot Peach Butter
Ingredients
- 5 lbs. fresh peaches
- 1 cup sugar
- Juice from 1/2 a lemon
- ~1/2 tsp. each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger
- 1-2 oz. American Honey bourbon liqueur (this can be omitted if you prefer)
- Handful of ice cubes (for ice bath)

Yield
- About 20 oz. of peach butter

Special tools needed
- Crockpot
- Immersion blender
- Large pot for boiling water
- Large bowl for ice bath
- Glass jelly jars (with lids) for storage

To peel the peaches
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. When the water is boiling (but not before), submerge each peach into the boiling water for 30 seconds, then immediately plunge the peach into a bowl of ice water for 10 seconds. I found that it was easiest to work in batches of 3-4 peaches at a time. After removing the peach from its' ice bath, you should be able to easily pinch the skin off. If the skin isn't coming off easily, the peach probably isn't ripe enough for this method, so carefully use a knife to remove any remaining skin.

To make the butter
Chop the skinned peaches into small cubes and place in a crockpot. Add sugar, lemon, spices to taste (I tend to be a little heavy-handed with my spices, but that's just a personal preference), and the honey liqueur. Stir the ingredients so that the peaches are evenly coated, then cover and cook on low for six hours. At the three hour mark, use an immersion blender to carefully puree the peaches to your consistency of choice. Like your fruit butter a little chunky? Then blend for about 30 seconds. Prefer a smoother spread (as I do)?  You're looking at closer to two minutes of blending time. Please do take caution when doing this, however, as the fruit is extremely hot at this point and may splash a bit! When the peaches have been blended to your liking, replace the crockpot lid and continue cooking for the remaining three hours. Spoon the butter into glass jars, and freeze, refrigerate, or give away to friends and family as needed.

weekend getaway: the berkshires

This past weekend, J and I spent a few days in the tony vacationland known as the Berkshires - a vast swath of quaint towns, farms, and theaters in western Massachusetts. I have to confess, though, that the reason for the visit was a gastronomical one - we were accompanying our good friends to a food tasting held by the caterer of their upcoming wedding. The chef had generously agreed to serve a party of four, and we didn't need much prodding to accept the offer. Saturday night's dinner had our tastebuds dancing. We were treated to heirloom tomatoes with fresh buffalo mozzarella, skewered beef tips, chilled tomato gazpacho, roasted butternut squash soup, salmon baked in asparagus vinaigrette, sirloin steak and hash browns (incidentally, the best potatoes I've ever tasted), pasta served with a mushroom medley that included rare chanterelles, a deconstructed wedding cake, and a blueberry cobbler that I had to force myself not to lick clean. Food coma FTW.

In preparation for the calorie-fest that would be our dinner, we spent Saturday afternoon reconnecting with nature and reminding ourself what it was to take an honest-to-goodness walk in the woods. Or rather, woods that happened to also be on a mountain. Though it took some huffing and puffing (on my part, mostly; our friend Alexis woke up early on the morning of our hike to go for a "quick seven-mile run"), we eventually made it to Squaw Peak, the summit of the 1,642" Monument Mountain. The view was pretty great, but what stood out more to me was the noise level - or rather, lack thereof. Once we had walked a few hundred yards onto the path, highway noise ceased to exist, replaced only by the sound of twigs under our feet, the click of a camera, and the occasional chirp of a bird. I can't remember the last time I was so relaxed while simultaneously exerting so much energy.

Each evening, the four of us would congregate on the back lawn of our hotel. We'd sit in Adirondack chairs underneath giant oak trees and watch the light turn from golden to purple to black. The clouds would float away and reveal more stars than I remembered existed. Nightcaps were slowly sipped, stories were lovingly shared, and laughter rang out over our little circle. Every once in a while, there'd be a lull in the conversation and we'd drift into our own thoughts, accompanied by a symphony of crickets. No screens, no technology, no digital devices of any kind. Just the Great Outdoors. At no point did anyone declare it to be a media-free weekend, but the marvelous thing was that after the GPS was no longer needed, we all naturally put our phones away, focused on each other, and just talked. Like in the old days. And I have to say that it was really quite lovely.

20 sunsets

One year ago this month, I began the process of moving all my worldly possessions into J's one-bedroom apartment. There is no official move-in date because the entire event took almost three weeks - since I was moving a total of three whole blocks we never had the need for movers, so we simply took every spare moment to slowly pack and haul and unpack a half a dozen or so carloads of Ikea bags. Though I was a bit nervous about the whole endeavor (other than roommates, I'd never lived with anyone before!), it almost immediately proved to be the best thing I've ever done. It has been so much fun learning to coexist with my boyfriend, and I truly look forward to coming home to him each night (cue: early 90's sappy underscoring).

Anyway, I digress. Despite the lack of heat, lack of air, lack of windows, lack of screens on said windows, paper-thin walls, consumption-riddled upstairs neighbor, occasional infestations, moldy bathroom ceiling, frighteningly rusty fire escape, terrifyingly ancient basement, uselessly nonagenarian landlord, and even more uselessly nonagenarian super who once locked me out of my own bedroom, I will forever hold a soft spot in my heart for my first New York apartment. I lived there for four years - the longest I'd lived anywhere since moving out of my parent's house and into my college dorm. My tiny bedroom with three blue walls and one burgundy wall was the space in which I laughed, cried, loved, lost, slept, didn't sleep, dreamed, despaired, tried, failed, and learned what it meant to be a single white female living in New York City in the late 2000's (cue: Sex and the City theme song. actually wait, don't take that cue. that show is a terrible representation of what life is like in NYC, and anyone who deludes herself into thinking her life is going to be one tenth of what Carrie's is needs to fall into one of those frozen polar-vortex curbside puddles pronto).

I knew I was getting a lifestyle upgrade when I made the move towards cohabitation. In addition to that whole life-partner-automatic-wedding-date thing, the apartment we share sports a few amenities I had previously convinced myself I could live without. Things like ceiling fans, a dishwasher, cable television, screens on windows that actually open, a bedroom big enough for not one but TWO nightstands, a washer/dryer in the apartment, and most important, that dial on the wall that lets you TURN ON THE HEAT WHENEVER YOU WANT TO (I'm told it's called a thermostat, but that term is unfamiliar to me) have become de rigueur - and I have enough self-realization to know that I don't want to go back to the prehistoric era anytime soon.

There is one final aspect of the apartment that I love love love - our balcony. It's by no means a fire escape, and it's so much more than a Juliette - it's a full 15'x5' lanai that houses three chairs, one table, seven plants, and two plastic flamingos - and faces west, offering daily and stunning views of Manhattan. I know I just sounded like an advertisement right there, but there's really no other way to describe the feeling I get when I want to know what color the Empire State Building is rightnow and realize that I can just duck out to my balcony and take a look. Some of my happier moments of this past year have been on that balcony - early morning coffees, quick trips to say hi to the plants, cold beverages on hot summer afternoons, watching in silent awe as the sun drops below the skyline, and late-night conversations with only a citronella candle to light out words.

True-to-form, I developed a bit of a sunset-photo-obsession when I moved in. I try not to oversaturate my blog posts with sunset pics (a "if you've seen one, you've seen them all" kind of thing), but that doesn't stop me from hitting the pause button on whatever we're watching on tv to run outside with my camera. I assume that eventually, the novelty of a gorgeous sunset over Manhattan will fade - but it's been a year now, and my love for this view is still going strong. Granted, I miss a lot more sunsets than I get to see. Nine times out of ten (or rather, six out of seven nights a week), I'm at work before, during, and after the golden hour. And there were a whole lot of late-winter/early-spring Monday evenings when I was home but only to witness the sky turning from light grey to dark grey. So maybe that's why I get so excited when I am able to catch a sunset - it's still a rarity in my life, and I'm like a kid in a candy store when they come around. The pictures above were all taken from the same vantage point on my balcony, give or take a few feet in either direction. Some color-correction was done in either Snapseed or Instagram, but by and large those photographs are showing their true colors - and my favorite view in the whole world.