Peach Salsa

When you come across a peach tree with low hanging branches from all the heavy ripe fresh peaches, remember one thing, fresh homemade peach salsa.  Grab your box and because the tree is leaning over the fence to the road, help the tree out and pick some of these ripe and ready peaches.   These peaches make the best peach butter, if they are over ripe and not a perfect peach. I also look forward to the local farmers market as they sell boxes of peaches each year, I anxiously await this ritual and let the hunt begin once I realize the peaches have come in.    I am pretty sure the vendors know me by name, and have the patience of a saint as I pick thru the cases making sure all the wonderful fruit is firm, not bruised and has been slowly ripened to perfection. Once my box is chosen, I will swiftly take it to my vehicle, and the entire way home I go to daydream land about which peach product I will make first. You see peach salsa is the most chopping, and peach jam is a longest process with the peeling and stirring and jam setting. Than there is canning the sliced peaches and peach butter, both are super easy peasey. I can use a lesser quality peaches on the peach butter from the wild peach tree peaches I pick. Its always peach salsa that wins, so I stop at the produce stand and purchase the peppers, onions, garlic, and roasted chilis for my creation. Once I get home, you better watch out, its like a tornado hits the kitchen, pots clanging, water running to fill the pots, bags of produce everywhere, peach boxes on the chairs, and my favorite playlist playing on the "Alexa". I start with peeling the peaches by bringing  a small pot of hot water to a boil.  I put 2 peaches into a small colander and dunk it into the hot water pot, for about 1 min.   This process tells the peaches to shed their skin, super easy, you can literally just wipe the skin off the peach.   Setting the peach in a bowl of water and lemon juice keeps all the peaches fresh while I dunk and skin all the fruit. The process goes pretty quick, once the peaches are skinned and the slicing, chopping of the roasted peppers, onions, garlic, and peppers, and de-seeding the hot jalapeno and or serrano peppers is completed. All the ingredients are added to the large stock pot or two with the vinegar, sugar, and cumin to cook bringing all the flavors together. One of my most favorite processes of canning, is adding the hot salsa into the clean jars, wiping the rims, and putting a cap and ring on each jar, this is very satisfying for me, to know I made this fresh health salsa all by myself! The Peach Salsa feeds me all winter. I use it to cook chicken with, on my fish tacos and on my scrambled breakfast eggs.