Peach and Hot Pepper Jam

By MGFCooking

I bring you something sweet with a touch of fire. The amount of fire is up to you. I will say that mine became hotter the longer it sat. (Which wasn't all that long...)

I served it with scones the first night. Over the next few days, the jam was slathered on a bagel with cream cheese (by a friend of mine), mixed into rice and beans, used to marinate chicken, and eaten by the spoonful straight from the jar. And would it ever be fantastic as a glaze on a lemon cake, less cooking and no pectin and it would be a fantastic salsa, or add a little oil, vinegar and salt, and voila! Salad dressing. Yep, it was one of those recipes. That recipe that starts as a vague thought, comes into being and transforms into more than you had imagined. Time to make another batch!

Ingredients

• 3 large peaches- pitted and sliced (my peaches are from a local farmers market and are about 1 pound a piece)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 vinegar
• 1/4 tsp pectin
• 1 medium and 1 small jalapeno pepper with seeds and membrane removed.

Details

Servings 3
Adapted from mgfcooking.blogspot.com

Preparation

Step 1

In a non reactive bowl, (I use glass) mash the peaches with the sugar and set aside for 30 minutes to allow juices to gather. Combine the peach sugar mash in a saucepan with vinegar and peppers, bring to a boil over medium high heat then reduce heat to low and keep mixture at a simmer to reduce this should take about 10-15 minutes. Add pectin and cook for about 10 minutes more.

Ladle into prepared jars and if canning then process according to instructions. I'm not canning so I ladle into jars tighten lids and allow to cool before I put them into refrigerator. Although the first two jars didn't make it into the fridge...

I mashed the peaches pretty finely but leave some chunks as you can see in the picture. If you left the peaches in larger chunks, left out the sugar (or at least reduced the sugar... or subbed honey, yum), didn't cook it as long, and sliced some green onions it would make a fine salsa. Maybe I'll do that with the next batch...


Enjoy!
~Michelle