beautiful and delicious jelly

our peach tree has been overworked for years, supplying us with about 100 pounds of peaches last year.  It was amazing! We feasted on fresh peaches, dried peaches, canned & frozen peaches, peach chutney, peach salsa, peach jam & peach jelly.
We had a couple of major branches break over the season and with a slower start this spring, we are not expecting such a bumper crop.
This year we bought a case of peaches to augment our much smaller yield. This led to us having a crate of Red Havens, which make the most spectacular jelly using the brilliant skins and the whole (not damaged) pits.

Peach Skin Jelly

skins & seeds from 1 crate peaches (peaches removed for canning or freezing or even eating!)
3 3/4 cups water
6 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp butter (optional)
2 pouches liquid pectin

After skinning the peaches, put all the unblemished skin, undamaged stones, etc. into a saucepan with 3 3/4 cups water. Boil 20 minutes then strain through a jelly bag.

Measure 3 cups juice and 6 1/2 cups sugar into a good sized (4 qt) stock pot, (you can add 1/2 tsp butter to prevent foaming) mix and bring to FULL BOIL on high. Immediately stir in 2 pouches of pectin. Then bring back to full boil and boil hard for 1/2 minute.

Remove from heat, skim and fill 6 sterilized 1/2 pint (250 ml) jelly jars quickly. Seal & process in hot water bath canner for 10 minutes. Remove and cool.

This recipe was originally published in the 40's in the Vancouver Sun's Edith Adams' Cottage Homemaker Service. Nothing was wasted!