Wednesday night's project was to finish canning pears. We worked on them Monday night too, and now I think we're finished, except for making some Spiced Pear Jam. That will have to wait until I have a little more time. Larry had everything ready to go when I got home a little after 6pm, and he helped. We can get 9 quarts, a full canner load, ready to process in about 40 minutes when we work together.
We ended up with 35 quarts of pears canned in light syrup. When we finished tonight I still had a few pears left. I remember my mother making spiced pears when I was a girl. I remember them on the shelves in the pantry, more amber than the other pears. I also remember I didn't like them! But my tastes have changed and I wanted to try making them myself and see if the flavor is more agreeable now.
And oh my, it certainly is! I tried a taste of the one last piece of pear left over from filling the jars, and it was delicious. I only made 5 pints, and now I'm wishing I'd made more.
Here's the recipe I used, based loosely on a couple I found in Joy of Cooking:
About 6 pounds of pears (I used Bartlett)
Sugar and water (allow one cup sugar to one cup water per pound of pears)
6 cinnamon sticks, about 3" long
2 tablespoons whole cloves
2 teaspoons whole allspice (the recipe called for whole ginger but I didn't have any. However, a different recipe called for allspice, so I used it instead).
Wash, peel and core the pears. Put the spices in a cloth bag.
Mix the sugar and water, add the bag of spices and simmer to a thick syrup. Add the pears and simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and place pears into hot sterilized jars. Pour the hot syrup over the pears. Tighten down the hot lids and process in a boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes. Remove from the canner, check and tighten the lids and store.
Mix the sugar and water, add the bag of spices and simmer to a thick syrup. Add the pears and simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and place pears into hot sterilized jars. Pour the hot syrup over the pears. Tighten down the hot lids and process in a boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes. Remove from the canner, check and tighten the lids and store.
I took the spices out of the bag and added them to the jars too--one cinnamon stick and a teaspoon or so of the other spices per jar. I'm wondering if this will make the flavor too strong, but there's only one way to find out--try it. And in another cookbook, the photos showed the spices in the jar with the pears, so I'm willing to give it a try because it just looks so pretty.
The turkey cooker and the canner on the deck, still doing duty in the snow.
Yum, I love spiced pears although I haven't made them in several years. Can't believe you have snow already. It's still Indian summer out west. Batsy
ReplyDeleteBatsy, it has snwoed several timess here, and some places in the mountains have had some snowfalls of a foot or more already. It's not unusual for us to get snow in November, but it's been really cold for longer than usual. I think we'll have a real winter if this keeps up.
ReplyDeleteAs for you guys, you had plenty of winter last year! I'll never forget your photos.
The pears look SO DELICIOUS! Yep, I think we'll have plenty of snowfall this winter!
ReplyDeleteMarie